Donate your Body to Science: Burial Alternative Saves Lives

Oct 29, 2010
Jennifer Mueller

Anatomical model - flickr user greenflames09 / CC 2.0

Choosing whole body donation, instead of traditional burial or cremation, is final gift to humankind for the advancement of medical science and treatment.

More than 56 million people worldwide die every year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A tiny fraction of those people choose to make a lasting contribution to society through anatomical donation, willing their remains to a scientific institution or tissue bank.

What is whole body donation?

Anatomical or whole body donations allow medical schools and research institutions to teach anatomy or surgery and perform experiments that would be impossible with synthetic or animal alternatives. Even as medical treatments become more and more sophisticated, this end-of-life choice has been declining in popularity, making each donation that much more valuable to science.

Tiffany Sharpless of the Medill News Service writes "medical professionals and those who advocate body donation are confident that studying human tissue is the key to medical advancements."

"A lot of people take this stuff for granted," Brent Bardsley, chief operations officer for the Maryland-based Anatomic Gift Foundation, told Sharpless. “When you go into a hospital you want the best care, but without body donations none of this is going to happen.”

What happens to a donated body?

In spite of the term "whole body donation" an anatomical gift is not necessarily kept whole. There are many possible uses for a donated cadaver, from medical school anatomy classes to specialty surgical training to cancer research. Different tissue banks specialize in different types of donations.

For example The Anatomical Gift Association based in Illinois provides bodies to medical schools for dissection, necessitating intact and embalmed bodies. The Anatomic Gift Foundation in Maryland works primarily with medical researchers that rarely need a body intact and seeks to maximize a donors gift by contributing to as many research projects as possible.

Is anatomical donation compatible with organ donation?

According to Science Care, the first non-transplant accredited U.S. tissue bank, the two after-death commitments are entirely compatible. "Organ donation for transplant takes first priority due to its inherent life-saving nature," the company writes on its web site.

But because bodies with removed organs must be used differently than intact bodies, not every tissue bank can accommodate organ donation, so donors who wish to do both should check with the program they are choosing.

What's the process for whole body donation and how does that choice affect memorial services and funerals?

Prospective donors should make arrangements in advance to donate their bodies. Some tissue banks require donor approval but others, such as Bio Gift, will accept next-of-kin consent alone.

Find an accredited tissue bank.
Fill out the appropriate paperwork.
Discuss your plans with your family and executor of your will and have them sign your tissue bank application, if applicable.
Once accepted into a tissue bank's program, a phone call by the next-of-kin after death sets the donation in motion.

While such a donation does preclude a grave site service or open casket funeral, it does not prevent a memorial service. Science Care, at least, will even return any unused remains of the deceased, cremated, if the family wishes.

How much will anatomical donation cost?

Because casket viewings, funerals, and cremation or burial can cost thousands of dollars, whole body donation can relieve family members or heirs of a significant expense. Costs will vary by tissue bank so it pays to shop around. Some banks ask donors to pay the cost of transport while others charge the research recipient for that expense. Regardless of the tissue bank chosen, the price tag for donation will be less than most other end-of-life options.

Can a family override a donor's wish to contribute his/her remains to science?

Yes. Tissue banks make it very clear that it is important to discuss end-of-life preferences with the family members who will be responsible for arrangements after the death of the donor. The idea of a loved-one dissected may be very hard for a grieving family. Discussing whole body donation well in advance will prevent such a preference from coming as a shock to grieving relatives and help ensure the donation is actually carried out.