The cadavers are donated to the anatomy lab and are used to further student’s education.
The annual memorial was held at the Newman Center, across from Dane Smith Hall on Saturday and lasted from 10 a.m. until around noon.
Leah Lucero, a first year medical student, was elected along with Michelle Sandoval to head up the press committee for the memorial, she said.
“It was really impressive, to me, how it all came together and how much so many people were willing to contribute to this,” Lucero said. “I was really happy to be involved with it. I was honored to be part of the ceremony.”
Sandoval, another first year medical student, said the memorial involved student speakers, a non-denominational speaker along with various music played and performed throughout the ceremony.
Sandoval said she and Lucero performed “Wind Beneath My Wings,” by Bette Midler, with Lucero playing piano and Sandoval on vocals.
Lucero said student speakers gave speeches on different subjects relating to the donors including; poems, personal shared experiences and letters addressed to donors.
“The theme of all the speeches was saying, just ‘thank you.’ Not only for teaching us but them donating their bodies is going to benefit humanity eventually because all of us are training to be healthcare professionals. There’s no way we could obtain this knowledge without working on the bodies,” Lucero said. “We could really never learn this from any other means, not from anatomical models, not from textbooks and I just felt so grateful by the end of the whole experience for all that I learned. By the end I don’t call them donors anymore, I tend to call them teachers.”
At the end of the ceremony, bonsai trees, donated by the HSC Student Council were given to the family members as gifts, she said. The memorial concluded with a dove-release outside The Newman Center.
“Really, this is closure for us, but also closure for them because they don’t get to say goodbye in the traditional sense. So we had a lot of family members expressing gratitude that we have this available to them,” Sandoval said. “I really appreciate the fact that we could meet the families, the families kind of make them real to us.”
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Around 50 first year students were involved in putting the memorial on and it took about two and a half months. First year students are the most involved because they are those who work in the anatomy lab, she said. Families of donors from the 2014 school year were invited to attend along with all UNM students involved in anatomy lab with around 150 people showing up.
Professor Norman Taslitz, professor of family community medicine who started the memorial, came to UNM in 1997 and started the annual memorial in 2002, he said.
“Basically, the experience of anatomy is an emotionally draining experience and so I wanted to provide something that would give the medical students some kind of clearance, some kind of acceptance of the experience. In addition I wanted to help the people who donate their bodies to the medical school, particularly the families of the deceased,” Taslitz said.“It provides a type of emotional closure for the medical students and for the family members too. Each class seems to add a little different dimension to it, but the basic format and the beauty of it and the caring are just very obvious every year.”
Taslitz said when a donor passes, their body needs to be admitted to UNM in a short time and for the family, the grieving process may not have been over. Families have expressed that the memorial allows them to complete the grieving process and are also given the opportunity to take the donor’s ashes if they choose to do with as they please, whether that be spread them or for a burial plot.
“I felt really grateful,” Sandoval said. “There are lessons you don’t totally understand until you can hold a heart in your hands and I think that it was a very special experience. I really appreciate the fact that we could meet the families, the families kind of make them real to us.”
Matthew Reisen is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
