The UBC body donation program has an average of 80 to 110 annual donations, but that number has dropped to 45-50 a year recently.
The UBC medical school is experiencing a shortage of corpses for medical students to study, researchers say as they solicit donations.
The UBC Body Donation Program has been in operation since 1950, with an average of between 80 and 110 annual donations.
However, this number has been reduced to 45-50.
And while some medical schools may be moving away from studying corpses in dissection and anatomy classes, for UBC medical student Armaghan Alam, experience is key.
“The human body is beautiful in its own way,” he said. “It’s important to learn things from that.”
Learning medicine with the use of a given body is something that textbooks, e-learning, or models cannot approach, Alam told Glacier Media.
“You don’t really get the detailed layers of tissues that interact with each other. You lose that certain knowledge.”
Dr. Ed Moore, professor and head of the UBC Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, oversees the body donation program.
He said all students are told that corpses are their first patients and should be treated with dignity and respect.
“In the lab there’s no joke. Don’t be fooled. There are no phones, laptops, cameras.”
Maximum use is made of education or research of every gift of a body, he added. Surgeons will come in to examine new techniques, others to try this technique before using it in the operating room.
Moore said each donation could improve the lives of many over the next few years.
“It’s a remarkable gift for posterity,” he said.
Consent is key
The program manages the obtaining of corpses used in teaching and research. Students of medicine, biomedical engineering, dentistry and others use corpses and tissues to learn essential anatomy, practice surgical techniques, try new innovative devices, among other uses.
Moore said donations have likely declined due to the pandemic, which saw the program closed for a while to ensure the safety of staff and students.
Now, however, corpses are needed.
Donor consent is a key part of the program, Moore said, noting that consent can be withdrawn at any time by the donor or his family.
“It’s totally voluntary.”
And while past practice may have been using unidentified bodies, that practice ceased decades ago, he said.
“A special experience for everyone”
The program emphasizes that students studying for a degree in medicine, dentistry, and related professions are respectful of given bodies.
This respect is something to which Alam has repeatedly returned.
He said that when students first enter the dissection lab, it is a clinical and sterile environment.
“There’s a special kind of life coming into the room,” Alam said. “This is a pretty special way to celebrate an individual’s life. I think it’s a special experience for everyone.”
Alam said each body is unique and as such, each offers unique teaching experiences for students.
He said his corpse had a major hernia while another had cancer. Students would learn about these conditions by looking at other corpses in the dissection room, he explained.
These learning situations may be underway in some schools, replaced by virtual teaching.
Alam does not believe that the practical experience of young doctors in the dissection laboratory can be virtually replicated.
Low references
“Donating one’s own body is a very special gift for future health professionals in our community,” the program’s website said.
“Students … are fully aware of the special privilege granted to them and the obligation they have to behave professionally during their training.
“People who donate their bodies to medical school can be sure that all human remains are given the dignity and respect that our society usually gives to the dead,” the site said.
UBC officials said the shortage situation is not exclusive to UBC; other North American universities are experiencing the same trend.
Each year, students organize a memorial service for donors, usually in September, who were cremated the previous year.
Alam suggested that one of the reasons for the declining donations could have been the lack of physical ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A drop in referrals could be another factor, he said.
“Maybe word of mouth has been lost.”
Moore said anyone interested in becoming a donor can visit the program’s website.
jhainsworth@glaciermedia.ca
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