Not just 'the cadaver': Hershey med students honor the dead who become their teachers

Students at Penn State College of Medicine on Monday will hold their annual ceremony to honor the people who allowed them to dissect their bodies.

The Derry Township-based medical school receives upwards of 150 medical cadavers per year. Contrary to popular belief, no one receives any money for the donation.

Rather, the cadavers are the result of people, or their families, who make the donation to further medical education. The bodies are dissected by first-year students over an 11-week period immediately after they begin medical school.

Eventually, the bodies are cremated, with some remains returning to families which request them, but the majority buried in a corner of a cemetery along Route 743 north of Hershey. Here is a 2012 story that takes a close look at medical cadavers:



On Monday afternoon, first-year students will gather there in a tribute expected to include poems and other expressions of the students' feelings. Some relatives of people whose bodies were donated usually attend.

It's the end of a process that began months ago when the students spent a Sunday evening "meeting" their cadavers, which some give a name to rather than simply referring to it as "the cadaver."

Here is more information, from a 2012 story in The Patriot-News, about medical cadavers:

Key cards are needed to enter the place where cadavers are dissected and kept at Penn State College of Medicine. Cell phones aren't allowed. A few years ago, a student at one New York medical school created an ethical uproar after posting a Facebook photo of a student giving a thumbs-up while posing with a cadaver. A student at another school posted a photo involving a brain.

At the Derry Twp.-based medical school, no such ethical violations have occurred, according to Michelle Lazarus, an anatomy instructor. Lazarus is also the intermediary between the school and the Humanity Gifts Registry, which oversees bodies donated for medical research in Pennsylvania.

Lazarus says Penn State College of Medicine has long taken a strong ethical approach to the use of cadavers. For example, through a collaboration with the humanities department, first-year medical students probe their feelings about the cadavers in writing assignments. They also are responsible for conducting a public memorial service after completion of their work on cadavers. "We tell them all the time: This is your first patient," Lazarus says.

"We feel really grateful to people who donate, and to their families. It's really important to us. We don't just think of it as a lab," says Michelle Matzko, a first-year medical student from Bloomsburg.

Contrary to rumor, there's no financial payment available for donating a body to science. Unlike in some states, Pennsylvania has no state funding toward supporting the supply of medical cadavers. The Humanity Gifts Registry provides $100 toward moving the cadaver from the place of death to a medical school by a licensed funeral director. But that covers only part of the cost.

About 80 percent of donated bodies come from people who specified their intent, according to Clariza Murray of the Humanity Gifts Registry. Survivors can opt to donate a body.

All of the bodies eventually are cremated. Families can have the ashes returned.
The rest go to one of three cemeteries in Pennsylvania. One is near Penn State College of Medicine, where about 80 percent or more of the cadavers that come there end up being buried.

There had been a decrease in the use of cadavers to teach anatomy to medical students. For instance, some schools might dissect one cadaver, with all the students viewing it with the aid of video technology. More recently, there's been a realization that dissecting cadavers is an irreplaceable educational experience for medical students and one that eventually helps them apply their knowledge to patients.
At the College of Medicine, this has led to a new use of cadavers for fourth-year students.

First-year students begin the 11-week dissection process shortly after arriving at school. It's done in this order: lower limbs and thorax; abdomen and pelvis; back and upper limbs; head and neck. Four exams take place in the lab during this process.

Through most of the process, the head and hands are kept covered. One reason is to prevent them from drying out. Another is that both parts can trigger powerful emotions. John Picard, 23, of East Norriton, Montgomery County, believes it's appropriate to end with the head and neck and the powerful reminder of the person who was. "I think it's good they do that because it really brings you back full circle," he says.

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