8. THE CADAVER

1. LETTER TO INCOMING 1ST YEAR STUDENTS :: download letter as PDF

The objective of this letter was to elicit your thoughts about death & dying, and human dissection. The letter was adapted from one that also is sent to 1st year Medical Students from Dr. Thomas Gest, Director of Medical Gross Anatomy at the University of Michigan Medical School. We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Gest's permission to reformat the letter.

2. THE CADAVERS: A GIFT TO US AND TO THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE

All of the bodies that are used for dissection belonged to individuals who donated their remains for the purpose of medical education. This donation is a selfless act, filled with hope for you and for your development as a physician.

The following is an open letter written to you by one of the donors before she died, to help you understand what this meant to her:

To the Students Who Will Work on My Body

The suggestion that the donor write a note to the students telling how he or she came to donate their body seems to me an excellent one.

When I was a senior in college, I took a course in comparative anatomy. We watched amoebae divide, then we dissected an earthworm, a fish, a pigeon and a rabbit. We saw evolution happen. We learned a good deal about laboratory methods and the excitement of finding things out for ourselves individually and in group.

My husband and I were missionaries in the Orient, and we read the Reader's Digest next to the Bible. One day a new copy came with the picture of a woman in it, and the caption read, "She runs an eye bank." We wanted to help, maybe four people would see with eyes we no longer needed, when that time came.

When we came on furlough, and I was in the Deaconess Hospital for a check-up, I asked the head nurse if they had the blanks there. She brought me one and I signed it.

On another furlough, I read about the Bone Bank and talked with my Harvard Medical School graduate doctor about it. I said, "They couldn't use my old arthritic and porous bones, could they?" He said he thought they could, and he would find out "from our bone men" if I wanted him to. I did and he wrote me that my bones could be used in a number of ways. So, again, I signed up.

Sometime later in a report letter this doctor said he had something in which he was deeply interested that he wanted to talk with me about. At my next conference with him, he said the Eye Bank and the Bone Bank were excellent, but there was a greater need in the medical schools for whole bodies. I had heard such terrible things about the medical schools and the way the students treated the bodies and the sights and smells of the labs that it took me months of thinking and praying before I could say yes. My doctor did not urge me. The most he ever said, very gently, in answer to all my arguments was, "I think this is something we can do."

Since I made my decision I have been very glad I did. Every time I stand by an open grave, I am glad that my body, or parts of it, will be working for a year or in slides and bone specimens for young doctors to go on studying for years to come. If a breakthrough should come and some or one of you students should open a door to a great discovery, it would be wonderful. If even one of you should be anything like as good a doctor as mine, it will be wonderful.

But here is my big secret. I have been praying for you for eight or ten years. Where were you in school when I began?

John Greenleaf Whittier has a poem called, "An Outdoor Reception." It is about a party he gave for some teen-age girls he had loved from childhood. He ends this way:

"The day is done, My visitors, like birds, have flown, Knowing naught of all the cheer their coming brought, And, in their going, unaware, Of silent following feet of prayer."

There will be others whose bodies will be in the laboratories where you work who have prayed and will continue to pray for you as students and in the great life service to which you go.

The Preceding Statement is Reprinted With Permission From: The Human Body, Tutorial Guide, Copyright 1990, President and Fellows of Harvard Medical School.

3. BODIES DONATED TO THE STATE ANATOMICAL BOARD

The bodies donated to the Anatomical Board of the State of Florida are cremated after they have been used for anatomical research and education. The families of more than half of our donors receive the cremated remains of their loved one. When a family does not wish to receive the cremains or desires that the Anatomical Board handles the final disposition, the cremated remains At the University of Florida College of Medicine, bodies donated to the Anatomical are buried at sea. It is extremely important that the identifying tag remain with the body throughout its use to ensure that it is properly identified. Additionally, students using the donated bodies have the responsibility to see that proper respect is always shown.