Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made headlines this week because of his decision to add organ donor status to the popular social network's profiles. His goal is to encourage more people to sign up as donors and give the gift of life to people who are waiting for transplants. Unfortunately, the organ donor feature can be a little bit hard to find if you don't know where to look. Here's how to become an organ donor or show friends that you are already an organ donor using Facebook:
- Navigate to your Facebook wall. You can do this by clicking on your profile picture.
- Click the Life Event button above the status update box. A list of possible events appears
- Select Health & Wellness.
- Select Organ Donor. A dialog box appears.
- Enter your state, date and reason for becoming an organ donor if you want to. All of these fields are optional.
- Click "Sign up here with the appropriate registry" if you are not already registered with your home state as an organ donor. A pop-up window will appear. If you are already registered, skip ahead to step 8.
- Select your home state (ex New York) from the pull down menu. Then follow that state's guidelines to register as an organ donor.
- Click Save in the dialog box. Your organ donor status will be published to your wall.
Note that signing up for your state's organ donor registry only makes your organs available for transplant after you die. It does not prevent doctors from trying everything possible to save your life nor does not involve donating organs while you are still alive. If you want to donate a kidney, a piece of your liver, or some bone marrow while you're alive, you'll have to join a different registry.
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