Melissa Medina's job is fraught with emotion. She not only comforts people at the worst time of their lives but must also ask them to donate their loved ones' organs to those desperate for a life-changing opportunity.

Ms Medina, 33, of Southport on the Gold Coast, is the co-ordinator for Queenslanders Donate, a division of Queensland Health that co-ordinates all deceased organ and tissue donations across the state.

"I meet people at the most horrible time of their lives, when they've learned their loved one has no hope and is brain dead," she said. "It's always terribly sad but I have to try to turn it around because people are usually grateful that someone who needs an organ can benefit from the death."

Ms Medina has received a 2008 Churchill Fellowship to research ways to encourage Australians to become tissue and organ donors.

In November, she will spend a month overseas learning why more than 34 per cent of Spain's population and more than 25 per cent of Americans donate organs, compared with only 9 per cent of Australians.

She believes Australia's donor rates are among the world's lowest because of the logistics involved and also lack of public awareness.

Last year 198 Australians donated organs, including 39 Queenslanders. More than 626 transplant recipients benefited from the organs.

Ms Medina's research comes as politicians grapple with how to improve relatively low organ and tissue donation rates in Queensland.

In April, Premier Anna Bligh suggested Queensland might become the first Australian state to introduce an "opt out" system for organ donation.

Such a system assumes people wish to donate their organs after death unless they have registered as declining.

The organ donation system now requires people to "opt in", meaning that, unless they register to donate, it is assumed they do not wish to.

"The most heartbreaking situations I deal with involve parents with young children," Ms Medina said.

A mother of two young girls, she said the tragedy "always hits home".

Recently, a young mother had died suddenly, leaving children aged five and three. "I was there when they were saying goodbye to their mum and the little one was saying, 'Bye, bye mummy, I'll see you in the stars,' " Ms Medina said. "It was just horrible."

Dealing respectfully with family grief is a major part of her role. So is watching the clock.

Hearts and lungs must be transplanted within four to six hours, livers and pancreases within 12 hours and kidneys within 24 hours.

Health regulations stipulate that for an organ to be used the donor must become brain dead within a hospital's intensive care unit and continue to be connected to a ventilator.

Just 1 per cent of all deaths meet these strict conditions.

Once a person is brain dead, Ms Medina is called in to set the process in motion. She must ask relatives to authorise the transplant - even if the donor has already signed a donor form - then go through a questionnaire to try to determine the organs' risk factors. She also talks to the donor's doctor about their medical history.

"It's an awful time to be collecting such clinical information but relatives are usually wanting to help someone gain from their tragedy," she said.

Queenslanders have the first chance, then those in other states, then New Zealanders. If the recipient is interstate or overseas, the organ is put into an esky for the flight.

The donor family is told by letter which organs are transplanted but not the recipient's identity.

A Queensland Parliamentary Select Committee is seeking submissions on how to improve donation rates. Submissions will close on August 15. Details are on http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/organ .