Human cadavers have been used typically for medical school students in the US. Cadaver dissection is the standard for US medical school anatomy labs. It is unheard of for undergraduate students to be able to dissect human cadavers, nonetheless, a human brain. I was fortunate enough to be able to dissect a human brain in my Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology lab this week. My professor expressed the importance and rarity of this opportunity and heavily stressed how we need to treat the human brains with respect because they hold memories, personalities, and families. This made me wonder if there were ethical discussions about using human cadavers in the lab and what students and physicians think about willed body donation.
Before the pandemic, 90% of US medical schools used human cadavers for their anatomy lab dissections. Cadavers can be donated to schools by donation programs, such as Willed Body Programs. Many students and physicians report dissecting a human cadaver had a positive impact for their education, especially those interested in surgery specialities. Even though there is a high percentage of students who documented a positive impact, there are few numbers of physicians who are willing to donate their bodies to Willed Body Programs. Physicians are more likely to be a registered organ donor than the general public, but it’s the opposite for willed body donation. Although, previous studies have found that the donor pools for physicians are disproportionate and do not reflect the broader demographics of the general population, so these results may not be fully accurate. It’s also possible that medical students can experience negative emotions while dissecting human cadavers that can dismiss them from willed body donation.
This creates an ethical dilemma because if willed body donations can help educate future physicians, why are there few donors in the medical field? Some reasons could be due to religion, spirituality, and cultural factors. A previous study surveyed 3 cohorts of first year medical students and asked if they would donate their body before they performed a human cadaver dissection and after completion of first year anatomy course (after dissection). Those who showed no religious affiliation and were organ donors were more likely to donate. Interestingly, there were fewer students who were open to donate after they completed the cadaver dissection. There was a 25% decrease in students who were open to donate. 35% of students who were open to donate before the cadaver dissection changed their minds after completing the cadaver dissection. Human cadavers are extremely valuable to education, but more research should be done to explain why there are people less open to donate their bodies, especially due to emotional impacts.
Gebert, J. T., & Zhang, M. (2022). Fewer medical students are open to body donation after dissecting human cadavers. Medical Education, 57(4), 369–378. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.14948
Your post was very interesting as it presented an issue that I have never really thought about before. After reading I wanted to do some research to see if there was any explanation as to why medial professionals were less likely. While I did not find anything specifically on medical professionals, I did find some more research that provides information into the demographics that were most likely to donate, and what the most common reasoning was. The paper I looked at highlighted that individuals with higher education were more likely to donate their bodies, as they were able to forgo traditional and conservative views due to their education (Jiang et al. 2020).
ReplyDeleteJiang, J., Zhang, M., Meng, H., Cui, X., Yang, Y., Yuan, L., Su, C., Wang, J., & Zhang, L. (2020). Demographic and motivational factors affecting the whole-body donation programme in Nanjing, China: A cross-sectional survey. BMJ Open, 10(9). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035539