Body Donation-The Ultimate Gift

By: Dr. Marianne Conway, Director

Whole body donation is fundamental to anatomical education and research because human dissection provides an educational tool for training health care professionals. The Body Donation Program of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, administered by the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomical Sciences of the School of Medicine, is the only whole-body donation program in the state. Our current database contains approximately 10,000 preregistered donors. Potential donors request information by phone, mail, or our website. After completing and signing the preregistration/authorization form, prospective donors return it to indicate their intention to donate. Donor eligibility is determined at the time of death, based on criteria similar to other programs in the country.

Upon acceptance, the anatomical gift is utilized for education in the gross anatomy courses for medical, dental, OT/PT, Pre-mat and MS-BMS students and in classes to visiting local high school and college students and teachers as part of the Academic Outreach Programs. The Body Donation Program also supplies anatomical material for research and for procedural and surgical skill training of our residents and specialists from our various clinical departments. To meet the demand for clinical skill training that has been steadily increasing over the last several years, a new surgical skill Annex Lab was built on the 7th floor, next to the Gross Anatomy Lab, utilizing space from unused research laboratories.

At the conclusion of the study, bodies are cremated and returned, if desired by the donors or their families or interred in the campus cemetery. In order to express our gratitude and memorialize the gift the donors have given, a public Ceremony of Thanksgiving is conducted each year. When donating their bodies, donors, their families or estates do not incur any cost as all expenses are covered by UMMC.