10 tips on working with human body donors in medical training and research

Joy Y Balta,Gabriel Venne,Geoffroy P J C Noël

doi:10.1007/s12565-022-00651-0

Joy Y Balta, Gabriel Venne + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12565-022-00651-0

Copy DOI

Abstract

Human body donors selflessly decided to make the ultimate gift to donate their bodies to education. Being on the receiving end, the health sciences education community owes it to the donors to ensure that they are being treated with utmost respect by promoting and developing high ethical standards and maximizing the benefits from this gift. Working with human body donors for research purposes has increased over the years, while regulations associated with these processes did not change. This article draws upon current literature and author’s experiences to offer practical tips for health educators and everyone working with body donors to achieve these goals. We offer 10 practical tips that help in starting the conversation about the best ways to work with body donors to maximize their contribution to health sciences education.

Highlights

Human body donors have been strongly associated with the anatomy teaching (Eisma and Wilkinson 2014) and play an important role in clinical training and research (Noël et al 2021)
Working with human body donors for research purposes has increased over the years; regulations associated with this process have not changed (Noël et al 2020)
Considering the extent by which body donors are being sent worldwide to meet the demand over the globe and the moral and ethical implications of such trade (Champney et al 2019), it is important that requests for human material be placed or redirected to local body donation programs

Summary

Introduction

Human anatomical material has been used for many years to learn about the human body (Balta et al 2015). Keywords Human body donors · Anatomical research · Medical education · Body donation program Human body donors have been strongly associated with the anatomy teaching (Eisma and Wilkinson 2014) and play an important role in clinical training and research (Noël et al 2021).

Objectives

Results

Conclusion