Heart transplant allocation debate
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Debate how donor hearts should be allocated among competing patients.
1. Open your materials
2. Start the work
Read short profiles of patients awaiting a transplant.
Show all 5 required steps
- Read short profiles of patients awaiting a transplant.
- Form groups representing the transplant committee.
- List two criteria you would use to allocate the heart.
- Defend your ranking against one opposing group.
- Write your final ranking with one justification.
Lost your place? Lost your place? You should have patient profiles read and two allocation criteria written down. If you have those, jump to defending your ranking against another group; if not, start by reading the patient profiles again.
Check your work before submitting
- Each student defends an allocation criterion.
- Groups acknowledge one tradeoff in their ranking.
3. Turn in your work
DueCheck Schoology- Hand in
- Written ranking of transplant allocation criteria with a one-sentence justification for the top criterion and acknowledgment of one tradeoff.
How to submit and name your file
Use the submission route shown on today's today's page.
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Assignment: Wk14 Exit ticket: Heart transplant allocation debate
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: Graphing reveals the dose-response pattern and a CER converts it into argument, so that stating limitations bounds the claim honestly and makes the conclusion more credible, not less. Today: Donor organs are scarce, so allocation systems must rank patients by competing criteria, which means every choice trades urgency, equity, and likelihood of success against one another.
Unit 3 guide: what to keep and use nextOptional: listen or watch a unit review▸
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: Donor organs are scarce, so allocation systems must rank patients by competing criteria, which means every choice trades urgency, equity, and likelihood of success against one another.
- 0-8Read patient profiles; assign committee groups
- 8-22Group prep: list 2 allocation criteria from your committee's perspective
- 22-40Debate round 1: each group presents its top criterion with justification
- 40-55Challenge round: each group defends ranking against one opposing criterion
- 55-70Individual writing: final ranking with one-sentence justification per criterion
- 70-80Share rankings; submit exit ticket
- • Right now, thousands of patients in the United States are waiting for a donor heart.
- • Today you will sit on the committee that decides who gets the next one.
- • There is no perfect answer, but your reasoning must be defensible and consistent.
- • Leave with a written ranking and a justification for your top criterion.
- • Transplant allocation criteria typically include medical urgency, compatibility, wait time, and likelihood of success.
- • Scarcity of donor organs means every allocation decision involves tradeoffs that affect patient outcomes.
- • Bioethics in cardiology is a component of the Human Body Form, Function, and Pathophysiology WebXam domain.
PLTW connection and today's work
Open Activity 3.1.1 Go With the Flow (Lesson 3.1 Cardiopulmonary Connection) in myPLTW and begin its heart and blood-flow content; connect one fact about blood supply to your transplant-allocation position.
Today's stopping point: You finished Lesson 2.3 investigation content; this begins Lesson 3.1, and the task should be checked off today.
PLTW activity titles identify the course connection. If your account will not open, use the posted materials for today and tell Mr. Mendoza. Do not mark an online activity complete unless you completed it.
Course connection
- Activity 3.1.1 Go With the Flow
Use the turn-in directions at the top of this page. Do not create a second submission unless your teacher asks for one.
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Lesson resources: reading, slides, and vocabulary▸
The deck carries the prior idea forward, lets you inspect an analogy, maps the rule to biology, and ends with the same evidence decision and exit ticket used on this page.
Generated from this lesson's canonical data with a red-team citation check.
Graphing reveals the dose-response pattern and a CER converts it into argument, so that stating limitations bounds the claim honestly and makes the conclusion more credible, not less.
Donor organs are scarce, so allocation systems must rank patients by competing criteria, which means every choice trades urgency, equity, and likelihood of success against one another.
A review board sorts scientific evidence, stakeholder needs, possible benefits, possible burdens, and uncertainty before choosing a policy.
- Which statements are scientific evidence?
- Which statements express a value or priority?
- Who receives the benefit and who carries the burden?
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
- • Evidence cards map to source-backed findings.
- • Stakeholder cards map to affected people and priorities.
- • The recommendation maps to an explicit tradeoff with a named uncertainty.
Driving question: Four patients need the one heart that just became available tonight. Who should get it, and what rule are you willing to defend out loud?
What you already know: Graphing reveals the dose-response pattern and a CER converts it into argument, so that stating limitations bounds the claim honestly and makes the conclusion more credible, not less.
New idea: Donor organs are scarce, so allocation systems must rank patients by competing criteria, which means every choice trades urgency, equity, and likelihood of success against one another.
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for Heart transplant allocation debate. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in heart transplant allocation debate.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: Four patients need the one heart that just became available tonight. Who should get it, and what rule are you willing to defend out loud?
What the evidence supports: E1-E3 and F1 support the daily take-home when the response meets the stated success criteria.
What it cannot prove: The package does not support claims beyond this lesson's or any real patient diagnosis.
- • : A thick, muscular blood vessel that carries blood away from the heart to the body, handling the high pressure of each heartbeat.
- • vein: A blood vessel that carries blood back toward the heart, usually at lower pressure and equipped with valves that keep blood from flowing backward.
- • : The smallest blood vessel, with walls one cell thick, where oxygen, nutrients, and wastes are exchanged between blood and body tissues.
- • : One of the two upper chambers of the heart that receives incoming blood and pushes it down into the below.
- • : A lower pumping chamber of the heart that pushes blood out to the lungs or to the rest of the body with each beat.
- • EKG: A recording of the heart's electrical activity over time, used to check rhythm and detect problems with how the heart beats.
- • : One complete heartbeat in which the chambers relax and fill with blood, then contract to pump it out to the lungs and body.
- • : The rhythmic expansion of an you can feel as the heart pumps blood, used to measure how many times the heart beats per minute.
Use it now: Choose one decision option. Cite E1 and E3, then explain how the rule connects the evidence to your choice.
Go further, optional: The source links below are optional enrichment. Every fact required for today's local evidence decision appears in this lesson package.
A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
Limit: Scientific evidence can inform the options and likely consequences, but it cannot choose a single value-neutral answer.
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
Limit: A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
Each student defends an allocation criterion.
Limit: E3 defines the classroom product or success criterion. It is not independent scientific evidence and cannot justify a clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-HAP-2027-04-19 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: anatomy and physiology consultant
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from heart transplant allocation debate supports before submitting the exit response named on today's page.
- • Rank the four patients by weighing urgency, equity, and likelihood of surviving surgery, then defend the tradeoff.
- • Give the heart to the sickest patient tonight, because that person will die soonest without the transplant.
- • Ask who else needs a heart beyond these four, since a rule you can defend must work for everyone.
Response: State one choice, cite at least two evidence IDs, explain the rule that connects them, and add one limitation. Submit it as the exit response.
Claim ceiling: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about heart transplant allocation debate. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from heart transplant allocation debate supports before submitting the exit response named on today's page.
Context: Medicine runs on scarce resources, so every clinical system has to build fair rules for who gets treatment first, and those rules always trade one good value against another.
- • T1: Read short profiles of patients awaiting a transplant.
- • T2: Form groups representing the transplant committee.
- • T3: List two criteria you would use to allocate the heart.
- • T4: Defend your ranking against one opposing group.
- • T5: Write your final ranking with one justification.
- • E1: A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
- • E2: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- • E3: Each student defends an allocation criterion.
Measurements: Use only the measurements, units, graph, or counts supplied in today's task. No additional patient measurement is implied.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for Heart transplant allocation debate. Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function. This is a teaching model, not patient or experimental data.
Uncertainty: This is a composite classroom scenario. Missing history, measurements, or confirmation tests remain unknown and limit the conclusion.
Mean = sum of values / number of values. Median = middle ordered value. Range = maximum - minimum.
For 2, 4, 4, and 10: mean = 20 / 4 = 5, median = 4, and range = 10 - 2 = 8.
Mean, median, and range keep the measurement unit. Order the values before finding the median.
Calculate the requested summary for today's supplied values, then write what it reveals and what it hides.
- • The solution must address the stated need in heart transplant allocation debate.
- • The decision must be supported by E1-E3.
- • The final product must make the success criteria visible.
- • Complete the work inside the 80-minute block.
- • Use only supplied or teacher-approved materials and evidence.
- • Do not trade , accessibility, or privacy for speed.
- • and evidence quality: must pass before scoring other criteria.
- • User need and effectiveness: highest scored criterion.
- • Time, cost, and ease of use: compare only after and effectiveness pass.
Test evidence: For each option, record the E1-E3 result that supports or fails each criterion. Do not assign a score without a named observation.
- Version or option tested
- Criterion met or missed
- Evidence ID and result
- Revision made
- Reason for the revision
- Need and user
- Criteria and constraints
- Chosen option and evidence
- Test result
- Revision and reason
Students often think Many students assume the heart should simply go to whoever is sickest, because that patient will die soonest without it.. The trap: That feels obvious, but it is a trap: the sickest patient is often the one least likely to survive the surgery, so allocation committees also weigh likelihood of success, because giving the only heart to a patient who cannot survive the operation wastes the organ and costs a life that could have been saved.
Parallel case (not tonight's prompt): A hospital during a severe flu surge has one ventilator left in the ICU, and three patients in the emergency department all need mechanical ventilation to breathe. The care team must decide who is placed on it. This is a different scarce-resource decision than the one you will argue today, but it uses the same reasoning moves, so use it only as a model of the format.\n\nMy ranking of ventilator allocation criteria:\n1. Short-term survival (likelihood the patient lives to leave the hospital with treatment)\n2. Medical need (how quickly the patient will die without the ventilator)\n3. Expected duration of use (freeing the machine sooner so it can help others)\n\nClaim: When one ventilator must be shared among several patients who all need it, the hospital should place it with the patient who has the highest likelihood of surviving the immediate illness with that support.\n\nEvidence: In a surge, ventilators are a scarce resource, and the standard goal of crisis-standard-of-care guidelines is to save the most lives with the equipment available. A patient with a strong chance of recovering from the acute illness is likely to be weaned off the ventilator and survive to discharge, while a patient whose organs are already failing for other reasons may not survive even with the machine. Choosing by short-term survival directs the limited resource toward the outcome it can actually produce.\n\nReasoning: Short-term survival connects the decision to the purpose of the resource. A ventilator buys time for lungs to recover, so it does the most good for a patient whose body can use that time to heal. Ranking medical need second still matters, because among patients with similar survival odds the one closest to dying without support should go first, but urgency alone is not enough if the patient is unlikely to survive regardless. Expected duration of use ranks third because a shorter course frees the machine for the next patient, extending the benefit beyond one person.\n\nTradeoff I acknowledge: Prioritizing short-term survival can mean turning away a patient who is sicker and more frightened right now in favor of someone with better odds, which feels unfair to the person in front of you. There is a real tension between honoring immediate need and using a scarce machine where it saves the most lives, and any rule I pick resolves that tension in one direction while giving up something in the other.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: Parallel worked model of the bioethics debate target: a ranked set of allocation criteria for a different scarce resource, with a one-sentence justification for the top choice and an acknowledged tradeoff. Use it to see the format and depth, then build your own ranking for tonight's prompt.
- Name the prompt or task.
- Answer it directly with the key evidence.
- Check that the response matches the requested format.
Keep the structure. Replace the question, facts, measurements, and evidence. Then recheck units, vocabulary, and whether the conclusion goes beyond the evidence.
Also due today: Record two points for each side from the committee debate before you submit.
- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Tap the speaker to hear a term. Add two of these to your notebook glossary with a definition and an example in your own words.
Pick just 2 or 3 words from today and make them yours: write what each one means in your own words, name the context clue or evidence that helped, then give one example from what you actually did in Heart transplant allocation debate. Try your own words first; the glossary is there if you get stuck. This is voluntary and counts as extra credit, so keep it short.
Saved on this device. Show Mr. Mendoza or add these to your notebook glossary to claim the extra credit.
Play the cold open at the start of the unit to set the scene. Each recording is AI-generated and simulated (fictional callers, no real people or student data).
Hand-picked readings, videos, and interactives for this lesson, all free and from authoritative open organizations (NIH, CDC, OpenStax, Khan Academy, PhET, HHMI, and more).
A fillable, Cornell-style notebook for Unit 3: Adventure Awaits. Type your notes, cues, and summaries right in the PDF, or print it and write by hand. Each lesson page has a cue column, a notes column, and a summary box, plus dated lab-record pages you can turn in.
HBS Unit 3 notebook: Adventure Awaits Fillable PDFCornell notes + lab recordsOpenVetted readings and references for this unit. Use them to prepare, to catch up if you were absent, or to go deeper on today's target.
Practice: try a question, then check your answer▸
Claim ceiling for this check: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about heart transplant allocation debate. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
A committee has one donor heart. Patient A is the sickest but has a 20 percent chance of surviving surgery. Patient B is less sick with an 80 percent chance of survival. Give one defensible argument for choosing each patient.
Write an answer and pick a confidence to unlock the key.
Fast retrieval with instant answers, not the commit-then-reveal check above. Try each from memory first: write what you remember about the earlier units, then check yourself here.
Missed class or ready for more?▸
Run this before you touch the bench. It is built from the real lab procedure, so the decisions you make here are the ones you will make with the equipment in your hands.
What today's skills lead to. These are real health-science careers this course builds toward. Tap one to see, on the US Department of Labor's O*NET site, what the job actually involves, what it pays, and how fast it is growing.
Debate whether donor hearts should prioritize urgency, likelihood of success, or wait-time; record two points per side.
Use the submission route shown on today's today's page.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
MedlinePlus: Electrocardiogram (EKG/ECG)You've passed Unit 2, so the optional extra-credit track is open. Complete reserved-unit work from home, including virtual labs, for extra credit. Each item shows its correct submission route.
Open the extra-credit track- CompleteEvery required part of the artifact is present, nothing left blank.
- AccurateThe science and the data are correct and match the evidence.
- Scientific reasoningYou explain your claim with evidence and reasoning (CER), not just an answer.
- Professional communicationClear, organized, labeled, and written the way a clinician or scientist would.
- SubmittedGo to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
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