First-year students in the UNM School of Medicine paid tribute to 24 people who donated their bodies for use in anatomy classes during a Sunday memorial service at Alumni Chapel.
More than 100 medical school students and family members of the donors attended the ceremony, which featured music, poetry and meditations on the study of anatomy and the far-reaching implications of donation.
The event helped give closure to medical students, many of whom face death for the first time during the 10-week anatomy class, as well as the families of the deceased, said event organizer Sage Columbo, a first-year student.
"It's an opportunity for us to say 'thank you,'" she said.
Welcoming those in attendance at the beginning of the service, Columbo said the study of muscles and other inner workings of the human body during the class had given her a new appreciation for seemingly everyday things.
"The biggest gift given in the last 10 weeks was that a smile is a miracle," she said. "Each person is a walking miracle. We realize how beautiful it is that we can touch; learn; have conversations; be friends, parents and children."
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Dr. David Bennahum, a professor of internal medicine at the School of Medicine, delivered a speech on the history and importance of human anatomy study. The science has advanced from humble beginnings, studying animals and fallen gladiators during Roman times to the earliest incarnations of what we consider modern anatomy in the 14th and 15th century, he said.
Renaissance discoveries about human anatomy shook religious and aristocratic authority with the same force as the assertion during the same period that the earth was not the center of the universe, he said.
Bennahum urged respect for people who continued to donate their bodies for use in medical schools.
"The clear message is that they believed you would use the knowledge," he said. "They believed that knowledge would liberate us from the burdens of ignorance and suffering."
Marie Stockton, the chaplain of the University hospice program, compared those who donated their bodies to people who donated organs to help save lives. She said the families of organ donors usually receive letters telling them how the organs had benefited recipients.
"I wish we could send you a letter that told you which future patients benefited," she said about the families of people who had allowed their bodies to be used in medical schools. "We'll never fully know or realize the quality of life as a result of the forethought of your loved ones. For revealing some of the secrets of life, I thank you, your families and friends for your gift to science."
Several students read poems and essays, including excerpts from "The Prophet," a poem by Lebanese philosopher and poet Kahlil Gibran first published in 1923.
"You give but little when you give of your possessions," reads one of the excerpts from the poem. "It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
Others sang hymns, inviting the audience to join in.
The memorial service was the second held at UNM. It was inspired by a similar program started in Ohio by Dr. Norman Taslitz, now a professor in the Physicians Assistants program.
"When they donate, there's often no funeral," he said. "Now, a couple of years later, they can come and have that closure."
The majority of the bodies will be cremated and given back to the families, Columbo said.
Eighty-five students went through the most recent anatomy class - 75 medical students and 10 physician assistance students. During a reception held after the memorial service, several said the event allowed them to come to terms with the often emotional experience of dissecting human bodies.
"It helps make them human, not just cadavers," student Cassie Thomas said.
Jen Fitzpatrick said she appreciated one of the poems read during the ceremony, Alma Roberts Jordan's "Hand," because hands of donors are often left covered.
"When you uncover the hands, you see this is a real person," she said. "You become a bit desensitized - a hand brings you back."
Jennifer Kaspar, one of about 15 donor family members who were given a single rose to represent their loved ones, said she liked that the service brought her family together to remember her grandfather, Charles Kaspar.
"He's helping with education," she said. "He always wanted to do that."
