Investigating the Status of Whole‐Body Donation Across the United States of America

Abstract

Cadaveric dissection has been used throughout history to gain a better understanding of human anatomy and to train medical practitioners. Today, these bodies are predominantly sourced through whole‐body donation programs housed by academic institutions (Champney et al., 2018). Universities rely on these programs to supply students, researchers, and clinicians with valuable, hands‐on learning experiences (Balta et al., 2016). The aim of this study was to gather information about the process of whole‐body donation at universities across the United States in order to better understand how body donors are procured for educational and research purposes. A Qualtrics survey was administered via email to 125 body donation programs in the United States. Results were gathered from the 50 programs that responded to the questionnaire. All but one of the respondents were accepting donations into their programs at the time of data collection. Collectively, these programs receive approximately 9,855 whole‐body donations annually. Our findings show that 82% of the donation programs receive enough donations to fit or exceed the needs of their institutions, while the remaining 18% receive too few donations to fit their institutional needs. Results showed that 37 programs permit next of kin body donation regularly or in times of need, and only 3 programs accept donations of fetal anatomical materials for educational and research purposes. Of the programs surveyed, 44% reported that other departments from their institution procure human anatomical materials from sources outside of the university’s donation program. Forty‐four programs reported that on average, over 80% of their registered donor population is composed of white individuals, yet only 5 institutions have methods in place to promote diversity among their donor population. Overall, we conclude that there is considerable variability in the operation of body donation programs across the United States. This is likely due to the lack of national policies to regulate these programs. These findings can be used to make recommendations about donor enrollment and program operations to build trust with prospective donors. By sharing information and best practices, anatomical gift programs across the United States can improve the donation process overall so that American universities may continue to reap the benefits of the immense gift that only whole‐body donors can provide.

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