How To Donate Your Body to Science

[neadods]

I'm not kidding; that is the topic of this post. (I'm in an estate-planning state of mind and think this topic is VERY important.)

If you want to donate your body to science - and there's an excellent book titled STIFF by Mary Roach that discusses what happens to the corpses - you need to plan in advance, because this has to be set up by you while you're still around to do the job.

If you have a specific hospital or research center in mind, talk to them directly regarding their rules and needs; their requirements will supersede anything I say here.

If you just generally want to donate your body, you need to find your State Anatomy Board* and ask them to send you donation forms. You fill out a rather detailed set of forms regarding your background, race, and health, and send 'em back. You get to specify if you want your body returned to someone (and if it needs to be returned in viewable condition) or if it should just be cremated and dealt with by them. There's also a card for you to sign and carry with the Anatomy Board's contact info; mine's just behind my driver's license, where it will hopefully be seen by anyone pulling out the license at the scene of an accident.

My estate notebook starts with a page saying "I have donated my body blah blah contact info."

I also have a living will & medical power of attorney, and if y'all are squicking at the idea of donating your body, then at least, for the sake of your family and friends, have these. My medical power of attorney haa a cascade, so that if whatever gets me also gets the first person on the list, it doesn't become worthless. The living will has a specific codicil: basically I ask for resuscitation *IF* I would have a certain quality of life, but if resuscitation would mean permanent pain or severe mental disablement, the doctors and my medical executor are to pull every plug they can lay their hands on.

I refuse to be the next Terri Schiavo.



*For U.S. citizens, obviously. For everyone else, best I can offer is "Google 'donate body to science.'" You're still likely going to need to do the donating while you're still breathing.

Comments

[lagilman]

I already carry a card that says "when I die, use every bit of me possible to give life to someone else."

Not like I'll be needing any of it.


{Jewish tradition bans the donation of body parts for the same reason they ban tats - you're not supposed to defile the body God gave you. I figure, if we're made of dust, dust can be used to replace anything missing, if need be. )

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Very thorough. Very good advice. I have organ donor card, and living will. Maybe I need to be more specific!

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Very useful. It's not generally realised (both here in the UK and, presumably, elsewhere) that 'donation to science' is not the same as organ donation - and the former requires much more pro-active arrangement covering everything from anatomy studies (students still need to do dissections) to DNA research - none of which require fully healthy organs (which is just as well, really...).

Not that 'science' always accepts the donation.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

NO ONE would want my body when I'm dead (after all, no one wants it while I'm alive - not even, much, given the state it's in!)

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

I'm too chicken to donate my body to science in general (mostly because I know what undergraduates do to them in their first semester at uni), but I carry an organ donor card, at least. Not as if I'm going to be needing the parts wherever I go, but I'm averse to my body lying on some metal slab for months while squeamish students pick at all my parts ;)

[sethrak.livejournal.com]

I've been an organ donor since I was old enough to do so, and I do periodic spot checks to make sure my husband is aware of this. "Hey, honey, pop quiz. Am I an organ donor?" "Yes dear." He hasn't gotten it wrong once.

You make an excellent point about the need for cascading POA. I'd hate to have Tom and I both in a car accident and thus my parents in charge. ::shudder::

[fyrdrakken]

I'm still at the stage in my life where I have no estate to speak of -- and given my lack of children or partner (and the unlikelihood of acquiring either), and given I'm living with my mother now and for the foreseeable future, I haven't seen fit to do any formal paperwork. (I'm 34 and from a long-lived family -- in case of tragic accident I'm comfortable with letting my parents handle things. In another decade or two I'm going to be thinking about what happens when I have to make these decisions for them, and I suspect I'll be making my own arrangements at the same time.)

For now, I've settled for mentioning to my mother that I'm in favor of A) being an organ donor and B) cremation -- haven't discussed it with my father, but when Stepmother #2 died in a car wreck he had them take what little tissue was still of use, after as long as she'd been lying before her body was collected. (Corneas and skin for grafts, at least.) And my grandfather was taken off life support with very little drama earlier this month, so I've seen how well Dad handles these things. (Helps that he's trained as a medical doctor and has a very practical and realistic assessment of things like quality of life and probability of recovery.)

[raqs.livejournal.com]

Good post! And good point. All medical schools, I know, need donations, and parts are just as important as wholes.

Please don't, however, perpetuate the myth that if you don't do your estate planning (which you totally should!) you'll end up like Terry Schiavo. I know from my own family that most doctors are perfectly happy to let you die; in fact in the United States it may not be possible to get any doctor to attend you doing it, or pay the least bit of attention. The idea that all deaths are prolonged by extreme measures simply isn't the case. It's far more likely that no efforts will be made to prolong your death than that more efforts than you want will be made to prolong your death.

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

I loved STIFF. I rather like the idea of rotting gently in the sun -- or the shade, depending on where the researchers have placed me. ;-)

[fandance.livejournal.com]

My college roommate was majoring in nursing. She would come back from class and tell me about the visits to the Morgue, etc. She said that all the teachers emphasized that the bodies were treated with respect, and insisted the students treat them the same way.

Both of my parents donated their bodies, to Gifts for Humanity in Philly (I think that's the name)