Demand growing for cadavers in med schools

Often, the students look over their shoulders to see McCarren, the lead chaplain at this Catholic university. He’s there if they want to talk, but also because he’s fascinated by this glimpse into the workings of the human body that most people never get. “You don’t lose sight of the mystery of it,” McCarren says. “It’s very moving – this is a person.”

It will be April before these students see their cadavers’ faces. The faces are wrapped, in cloth and plastic, to keep the more delicate tissue of the head from drying out. Like with the rest of the body, the skin will be peeled back. They’ll remove the skull cap to lift out the brain. Then they’ll halve the face, the only way to see sinuses.

“Seeing someone’s face is a very tough situation,” says Vinny DiMaggio of Brooklyn, N.Y. “It’s really a gift” all these donors have given.

He is in charge of organizing a memorial service the class will host for their donors’ families in the spring, when dissection is done. That’s when students thank families, one on one, for this big step in their education. About half of the donors’ families want the remains returned after dissection is done. Students working on those bodies keep every bit of tissue, for Georgetown to cremate.

The remaining bodies will be cremated, too, although Suarez-Quian retains some organs for additional classes. Those ashes are buried in a local cemetery plot, under a tombstone that reads: “In Memoriam Those who Gave of Themselves that Others Might Benefit.”

The Canadian Press