Donating your body to medical science?

[cailin maith]

That's what I discovered - always been really interested in donating to medical science, but am now an organ donor, don't know how that works.

I suppose when you weigh it up - if you have organs that someone else could use, it would be a bit unfair to not give them to the right cause...

Maybe they should have another tick box on the organ donation thingy... "If useless, give me to the students"

[Zippy]

I suppose when you weigh it up - if you have organs that someone else could use, it would be a bit unfair to not give them to the right cause...

Maybe they should have another tick box on the organ donation thingy... "If useless, give me to the students"

That's a good idea. I plan on hanging on until my organs are useless though ...

[MaryPoppins]

That's a good idea. I plan on hanging on until my organs are useless though ...

I suspect I have destroyed some of my organs already, so there's probably not a lot left.

I'd rather be an organ donor though in the great scheme of things I s'pose. A friend's young son died suddenly recently; she immediately consented for him to be a donor, which I found incredibly humbling.

[cailin maith]

I suspect I have destroyed some of my organs already, so there's probably not a lot left.

I'd rather be an organ donor though in the great scheme of things I s'pose. A friend's young son died suddenly recently; she immediately consented for him to be a donor, which I found incredibly humbling.

Oh my goodness, that must have been awful

[NickFitz]

I recently read Mary Roach's book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and it turns out there are quite a few ways donated bodies can be used other than for educational dissection. Examples she gives include use in crash tests (dummies don't get smashed up in the same way as flesh and bone), ballistics studies (for example, determining the extent of injury caused by non-lethal weaponry such as beanbag rounds), and being left out to rot in order to give forensic scientists data that can later be used in their investigations (like all that bug stuff in CSI).

I don't know how many of these options are available in the UK, or if you even get to choose - most of this stuff tends to be done by researchers associated with university hospitals, so maybe it's just the luck of the draw whether you get to be dissected by undergraduates, or instead have your head cut off and shot in the face while your legs are taken away to be smashed into sideways by simulated car bumpers (both of those being examples she gives of active research projects).

[SueEllen]

I doubt they would do that with donated bodies have they have enough problem in the UK getting people donate as it is. Remember all the scandals with dead children's body parts not being returned?

I was told that my more than one source including people whose grandparents donate their bodies, that after a year the body bits where buried.

Personally I don't know what use your body is when you dead so I've been on a registered organ donor since I can remember.

[shaunbhoy]

Personally I don't know what use your body is when you dead so I've been on a registered organ donor since I can remember.

WSES++

When I go they can do what they like with my remains, from medical research, hanging me up in the garden for the birds to peck, or using my arse for a bikestand.

[NickFitz]

I doubt they would do that with donated bodies have they have enough problem in the UK getting people donate as it is. Remember all the scandals with dead children's body parts not being returned?

Yes, but the scandal there was over the fact that bits of children were removed and retained without the consent (or knowledge) of the parents. When you hand your body over to be used for medical research, you sign away all rights in it, so they can do anything they like really, as long as it is for the purposes of legitimate research, which is the case for all of the examples Roach gives (she visited the researchers and watched their experiments, too).

I was told that my more than one source including people whose grandparents donate their bodies, that after a year the body bits where buried.

I believe they usually cremate the bits nowadays, or at least what's left.

Personally I don't know what use your body is when you dead so I've been on a registered organ donor since I can remember.

Remember that, if it turns out your organs are not suitable for donation - hopefully because you've lived to such a ripe old age that they're no good to anyone else - you have to specify it separately if you want them to use your body for scientific/educational purposes instead.

[Boudica]

There is such a shortage med students do not get to cut up cadavers they only get to observe, and given the one I know said to the chap beside him something about wondering what 'it' would taste like, maybe that is not such a bad thing.

med students

[shaunbhoy]

and given the one I know said to the chap beside him something about wondering what 'it' would taste like

Chicken..............apparently!

HTH