A one month Transplant Coordinators’ Training programme was held at the Chennai office of MOHAN Foundation in May 2014.

In addition to lectures by eminent faculty, films on brain stem death certification, apnoea test and arterial blood gas analysis, organ retrieval and transplantation were shown. The participants also visited TACT Academy to learn basic life support skills, TANKER Foundation to understand dialysis, Apollo Hospitals’ Blood Bank, and Eye Bank of Sankara Nethralaya to get practical knowledge. There were interactive sessions on counselling, grief counselling, communication skills, and tackling stress. This was also the first time videoconferencing was used for training – Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi were linked for this purpose. The videoconferencing equipment was donated by Cognizant Foundation.

There was a note of poignancy to the training as the relatives of two of the participants were deceased organ donors, but it was humbling and inspiring to have the participants share their stories.

The valedictory function was held on 30th May 2014 and Prof. P.V. Ramachandran, Chairman, Nursing Education, Sri Ramachandra University distributed the certificates. He encouraged the participants to love and respect the profession they had chosen because they were the backbone of the organ donation and transplantation programme.