CAMPUS

'Gift to the next generation'

Body donations for medical research are on the rise

Susan Spencer
Susan.Spencer@telegram.com
Mandy Collins is director of the anatomical gift program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. T&G Staff/Christine Peterson

WORCESTER - For some, it's the ultimate gift. Others have had major health problems and want to help find a cure. And for many, it's also a way to save thousands of dollars in funeral costs.

Whatever the reason, medical schools across the United States have seen an increase in the number of people choosing to donate their body to science, according to recent news reports.

Donations to the University of Massachusetts Medical School's Anatomical Gift Program have fluctuated but increased along with the national trend - up 45 percent to an anticipated 112 donations in 2016 from 77 in 2010.

"Overall, we do have a higher donation rate," said Amanda J. Collins, director of anatomic services in the Anatomical Gift Program at UMass. "A lot of that is outreach."

Ms. Collins said the program's former director met with nursing home administrators and senior groups to inform them of the program. On the job just six months, Ms. Collins said she plans to enhance those outreach efforts, including having a table at the UMass Memorial "mature workforce" job fair in the fall.

The Anatomical Gift Program at UMass has registered more than 6,000 potential donors and has accepted more than 2,200 whole body donations since its inception in 1970, according to information on its website, www.umassmed.edu/anatomicalgiftprogram.

Pamela Eldredge, a chief probation officer who lives in Northfield, felt so positive about the experience her family had after her 88-year-old father's body was donated to UMass Medical School two years ago, she planned to volunteer as a spokeswoman for the program in Western Massachusetts.

"It was a very easy, kind way to say goodbye to your loved one," Ms. Eldredge said in an interview.

She described her father as "always very altruistic and scientific-minded," a man who had been admitted to attend Yale Medical School but instead became a chemical engineer and had a long and successful career in engineering.

Throughout his life, he had several cancers, heart problems and surgeries, but he kept bouncing back. 

He registered to donate his body because, according to Ms. Eldredge, "He just said, 'I want to keep giving.' "

"Educating students in the human model is very important," Ms. Collins said. While some other health profession programs train students with animal or computer models, "It's hard to correlate with the clinical models."

First-year medical students at UMass work in teams of five with an individual donor in their anatomy class.

Before the donated bodies are used for studies, they are scanned through a CT scan so students are able to see the radiological images and compare them to the physical body.

Students learn the age and cause of the donor's death. They receive information from a health questionnaire, which details such factors as history of illnesses and medications, surgeries, and smoking, drinking and exercise habits.

Ms. Collins said on the first day, students have a chance to meet quietly with their donor, whose body is covered. "They start out kind of nervous," she said. Over the course of the semester, however, "They do become very close with the bodies they work with."

After finals, students come back and have their time as a group to say goodbye. They leave a rose with their donor and some leave notes or poems to be cremated with the body.

The students plan a memorial service for the individuals whose gift made their studies possible, held each spring at the medical school.

"It does have a big impact on not just the students but their (donors') families as well," Ms. Collins said.

A dean at the memorial service Ms. Eldredge attended described time spent with an anatomical donor as the most amount of time a physician would spend with a single patient in his or her career.

"Your first connection is a lasting connection," she recalled the dean saying. "Even the medical students started crying."

Ms. Eldredge and her mother have registered as donors. Her daughter, a chemical engineering professor at Northeastern University, is also very supportive and spoke at the memorial service about how such generous gifts contribute to advancing scientific research.

Once studies are completed, the remains are typically cremated and either returned to the next of kin for private burial, or are buried in a marked grave at Pine Hill Cemetery in Tewksbury.

Burial at Pine Hill, in a section dedicated to cremated remains from the state's four medical schools, including Harvard, Boston University and Tufts, besides UMass, is at no expense to the family.

Ms. Collins said that donors may choose when they register to not be cremated, in which case their remains would be released to next of kin for private burial.

Ms. Eldredge's father's cremated remains were released to her family for private burial in Connecticut, where he had lived for many years. 

Although not a motivating factor in his decision to donate, the cost for her father's private burial was "marginal" overall, she said, estimating it at less than $1,000.

By contrast, the median cost nationwide of a funeral with viewing and burial was $7,181 in 2014, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, a 29 percent increase from $5,582 in 2004. This cost is in addition to cemetery expenses and purchase of burial lots.

Locally, burial services at Worcester's Hope Cemetery range from $900 to $1,500, depending on day of the week or holiday, with extra fees for such items as canopies and vault installation. Cremations cost $450 to $650. Purchase of a single-grave lot is $900 with a flat marker and $1,200 with a monument.

Burial for residents at Shrewsbury's Mountain View Cemetery is $700 to $780 with a casket, or $600 for cremated remains. A single grave lot with a flat marker is $900, or $1,050 with a slant marker.

Pine Grove Cemetery in Northbridge charges $1,300 for a casket burial and $850 for cremation, not including lot purchase.

"It's definitely a reason that comes up," Ms. Collins said about avoiding funeral and burial fees. "But more often than not, we hear from people that had some kind of a tie to anatomical donations," either as physicians themselves or through family ties.

People who are over age 18 and of sound mind may register to donate their bodies, according to the UMass Anatomical Gift Program registration information. The medical school may not accept a donation if the person was obese, emaciated, had open wounds or certain infectious diseases such as HIV or tuberculosis, or was involved in extensive trauma at death.

Bodies must be delivered intact within 24 hours of death. Autopsy or organ donation, other than eyes, would make a body ineligible for donation.

Ms. Collins said she counsels potential donors to have a backup plan, in case the body can't be accepted.

Most major religious groups consider donating one's body for science and education to be a charitable act, according to statements on the UMass program's website.

For Ms. Eldredge, a member of the Congregational Church/United Church of Christ, who was raised Episcopalian, the decision to donate was "a gift to the next generation."

She said, "To me, the body is a tool. The spirit is your core."