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Cub Scouts Learn Value Of Organ Donation

Cub Scout Sean Mooney helps Willingham demonstrate some of the high-tech tools used during transplant surgery.

The boys took turns trying out a laparoscopic training device, a true test of eye/hand coordination.

Jacksonville Cub Scout Pack 276 earned donor awareness merit patches for their experience in the OR.

When 8-year-old Sean Mooney first walked into the operating room at St. Luke's Hospital, his eyes lit up when he saw the high-tech gadgets and tools transplant surgeons use. Lined up on a steel tray were metal clamps and retractors; a computer screen above showed images from the laparoscopic camera used to guide the way during surgery; bright lamps shined overhead like halos. Decked out in scrubs, Mooney was having a great day.

So were 10 other second grade boys from Jacksonville Cub Scout Pack 276 who, under the guidance of Dr. Darrin Willingham, assistant cub master and Mayo Clinic transplant surgeon, were there that day to learn about the importance of organ donation so they could earn a donor awareness merit patch.

The boys toured the operating room, looked at the instruments and asked lots of questions. They also tried out a laparoscopic training device, stapling pieces of red rubber foam through a clear box to simulate how surgeons staple off the renal vein for living donor kidney transplants.

"It was great!" says Mooney. "I got to try all the instruments, and I even got to bring home part of a [foam] liver."

Some of the boys, Willingham says, completed the training exercise with skilled ease.

"I guess the experience boys this age have with video games is paying off," he joked. "Their hand/eye coordination is incredible."

Willingham shared organ donation facts with the boys, explaining how just one donor can potentially save seven people with a heart, two lungs, a liver, two kidneys and a pancreas. In some cases, even corneas from the eyes and bone can be procured and put to good use.

"My goal with this is to introduce them to the concept of organ donation so they are comfortable with the idea, and understand that it's a very real and acceptable thing," says Willingham. "It's sad when someone dies, but when you can make something good come from a terrible circumstance, that's wonderful."

Dr. Christopher Hughes, Mayo Clinic's director of transplant surgery, points out that a main theme in the Boy Scout creed is "to help other people." How better to have that point illustrated than to hear stories about how selfless giving results in helping others live, he says.

"Childhood experiences like this one will shape their foundations as adults and provide memories that they will call upon later for making decisions affecting their lives and the lives of others," says Hughes. "These children are the future of America."

Learn more about organ donation at Mayo Clinic.