Representatives of an initiative promoting organ donation at an Oklahoma City high school are traveling to Georgia to train teachers at Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School on setting up a similar program there. 

The April 19 training session is one of many events supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, April 15-21. 

Called “Circle of Life,” the Oklahoma organ donation effort brings together Putnam City High School's Health Academy, local hospitals and the Oklahoma Organ Sharing Network and offers teens an up-close view of the entire donation process.

Students enrolled in the Putnam City program meet with healthcare workers who take them inside intensive care units, emergency rooms and operating rooms.  Seniors have class discussions about their experiences and detail them in a journal.  The class is encouraged to formulate a plan to increase organ donation among their peers through radio commercials, posters, donor drives and press conferences.

High School Health Academies like the ones at Putnam City and Booker T. Washington – two of six pilot sites in HHS’ National Network of High School Health Academies and Health Career-Focused Programs – are small learning communities within high schools that share a health career theme and provide students with role models, health awareness courses, and health-related training and certifications.  The network’s goal is to increase the effectiveness of high school health career programs and the number of students entering health occupations. 

The network is administered by HRSA’s Bureau of Primary Health Care.  HRSA is the lead agency in HHS working for improved access to health care for all Americans.  BPHC provides more than $1 billion in annual funding to programs that improve access to primary health care for America’s vulnerable and medically underserved individuals and families.

Training sessions like the one in Atlanta are planned for the other network sites in Florida, New Mexico, Michigan and Washington, D.C.  For more information on the network, go to www.bphc.hrsa.gov/omwh and click on National Network of Health and Human Services Career Academies.

###