Alicia Pérez Blanco, MD PhD, Intensive Care Medicine; M.S., Bioethics
Organización Nacional de Transplantes (ONT)
Alicia Pérez Blanco works currently as a bioethicist and specialist in Intensive Care Medicine for the Spanish National Transplant Organization (ONT). She serves as the 24-hour on-call Intensive Care Consultant for helping donor coordinators nationwide resolve any problems they may face during the process of organ donation and transplantation. This work is connected to the research that she conducts concerning Intensive Care Oriented to Organ Donation with the team of researchers she directs.
Pérez-Blanco also heads a working group of leading Spanish pediatricians and donor coordinators who aim to establish national guidelines for and promote pediatric organ donation. Last year, she and the team of cardiologists and immunologists that she headed produced the National Protocol on ABO incompatible heart transplantation which is available online at:
http://www.ont.es/infesp/DocumentosDeConsenso/Protocolo%20nacional%20Tx%20Card%C3%ADaco%20infantil%20AB0i.pdf. Six neonates have successfully received a heart transplant thanks to this protocol.
As a bioethicist, Pérez-Blanco serves as the secretary of the ONT ethics committee for the purpose of coordinating guidelines on such topics of interest as uterus transplantation or non-resident and resident access to the deceased donor waiting list in Spain.
Her publications include: “Summary of Spanish recommendations on intensive care to facilitate organ donation” (Am J Transplant, 2019), “Special issues in pediatric decieased organ donation”(Intensive Care Medicine, 2019 ) “How Do Healthcare Providers Feel About Family Presence During Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation?” (J Clin Ethics, 2017), “Dignifying Death and the Morality of Elective Ventilation” (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2013), and “DCD: What are we waiting for?” (chapter in Organ Transplantation: Ethical, Legal and Psychosocial Aspects. Toward a Common European Policy, Published online 2008 Nov 21. doi: 10.1093/ndtplus/sfn170; the latter two with Pablo de Lora).
Pérez-Blanco completed her Ph.D. in 2005 the U. Miguel Hernández (Alicante) with a dissertation on “Treatment efficiency of triiodothyronine on hemodynamic management organ donor and adenine nucleotide concentration.” While completing her M.S. in bioethics at the at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (2011-12), she fell in love with the field while taking on Clinical Bioethics at Harvard University. She gained further expertise by enrolling in an intensive course at the Interdisciplinary Institute of bioethics in Yale University, 2013.
Since 2011 Pérez-Blanco has taught courses on "Health Care: an analysis of contrast between USA and Spain" and “Issues in Bioethics across Cultures” for the Stanford U. program in Madrid. She has taught a MOOC course online with Pablo de Lora titled: “Organ transplantation: Ethical and Legal Challenges” (https://www.edx.org/es/course/trasplante-de-organos-desafios-eticos-y-uamx-txetj201x-2)
