Responses to the question: How has memorial ceremony provided cResponses to the question: How has memorial ceremony provided closure for you in terms of working with body donors?losure for you in terms of working with body donors?

The Impact of Memorializing Body Donors at the End of an Anatomy Course

Kathy A. Starr, Ph.D.Physical Therapy DepartmentWestern Carolina University

Cullowhee, NC 28723kstarr@email.wcu.edu

“Sustentaculum Tali”

Original poem by TJ Constantino, Jessa Brown, Courtney Smith,

Brooke Malanga, and Jan Bernard, Class of 2008

I have often wondered where your feet have carried you, where your favorite places to stroll could be found, and how often you stopped and pondered in those quiet places.

Neurons fire, sensations are registered, experiences recorded, memories catalogued.I wonder whose faces, what places were etched along the tracts of your brain.What smells, what songs, what moments brought those memories flooding forward.Was it the angle of the light coming through your window on a fall afternoon?

A tune from long ago you heard on the elevator, the scent of a familiar perfume on a passer-by…if we could extract these bits of memory would we be able to map the make of the man?

The Rhythm of your heart- the type of LAD you were I never heard, what made this heart pound, and what was its sound, while you were abound? But yet, I know the weight of your heart, as I’ve held it in my hands. I know its shape and how it fit inside you. I’ve traced through your ventricles and imagined all the times that blood had raced these halls before. On my path to educational discovery, Charles, you were my door to open possibilities.

These hands- as I hold in my own hands, I wonder how many others have felt your touch. Not your skin, muscle, tendons, and bones; but your touch as deliberate as my cut. As I work I often wonder what work these hands have done. 94 years of flex and extend, hold firm, give way to release and bend?

Your feet- as our journey comes to an end, through the hips, over the knees, and out the toes, I stop to look back. Hand in hand, step-by-step, we explored side by side. With these final trims we round the bend straight down the calcaneal of your heel. As with all life and education that must divide, so is the time for you and I.

Where your feet have been are unknown to me, but where they have taken me I’ll always remember.

A Glimpse of James

Original poem by Maija Tabor, Class of 2007

Where you’ve beenWhat you’ve doneWe don’t know.We don’t know the road that led you hereOr who you left behind.Without any of that,We know you wanted to help.To make a differenceFor that, we thank you.You gave us a precious gift.A glimpse of you.We know your heart, but not its love.Your feet, but not the paths they’ve tread.We know your hands, but not the cards they’ve held,Or the letters they’ve written, or the babies they’ve touched.We may not know you, But we will carry you with us for the rest of our lives.Thank you.

Musical Interpretation with Poetry Reading

Releasing Balloons as a Commemoration

Poetry Reading and Flowers

Candle Lighting Ceremony

Performance by Gospel Singing Group “The Inspirations”

Celebratory Toast with Sparkling Grape Juice

Remembrance Plaque by Class of 1999 Naming a Star in Honor of the Body Donor, Members of Class of 2003

Memorial Pen and Ink Drawing by Lucia Hunt, Class of 2004

Cherokee Bead Work by Jennifer Thompson, Class 0f 2001

Memorial Quilted Landscape by Kim Clayton, Class of 2002

Oil Painting in Memory of Body Donor by Miranda Bunge, Class of 2002

Results

6Coming together as a group to celebrate the body donors

4Memorial program had no emotional impact or provided no closure

3Students felt there was no need for closure at the end of the anatomy course

Negative or neutral attributes of the memorial ceremony :

1Acknowledging the value of a body donor program

2Giving something back to the body donors

2Developing a new perspective on life and death

8Realizing how the body donors provided the unique opportunity to learn anatomy

9Reflecting on the experience of dissection and the anatomy lab

15Providing emotional closure and an opportunity to pay respect to the body donors

19Remembering the body donor as a person, not just a dissection

35Expressing appreciation, giving thanks, and remembering the body donors for the gift they provided

# of ResponsesPositive attributes of the memorial ceremony :

Introduction

Physical therapy students at WCU spend two semesters dissecting the human body using cadavers obtained from the James H. Quillen College of Medicine Anatomical Gift Program at East Tennessee State University. Dissection groups, composed of 4-6 students, work on the same cadaver throughout the anatomy course.

Students are given the body donor’s first name, age, and a brief description of the cause of death. Near the end of spring semester each dissection group develops a short presentation as part of a memorial ceremony to honor the body donors who have played a pivotal role in their anatomy education. The ceremony is held in a park adjacent to the classroom building. Department faculty and administrators are invited.

Past memorial presentations have included poetry readings (both published and original), musical performances, recitation of appropriate short stories, candle-lighting ceremonies, a tree planting, and distribution of wild flower seeds.

Methods

To assess the impact of memorializing the body donors, students from the classes of 2006-2008 (n = 89) were asked to describe their perceptions of the memorial ceremony in written reflections based on a series of questions. In this poster presentation responses to the following question were analyzed:

How did the memorial program provide closure for you in terms of working with your body donor?

Common themes were identified reflecting both positive and negative/neutral attributes of the memorial ceremony.

This study was approved by the WCU Internal Review Board for Human Subjects Research. Students gave written informed consent to publish their responses. Participants were 29 males (33%) and 60 females (67%) ranging in age from 22 to 43 years.

Coming together as a group to celebrate the body donor: “Having a ceremony at the end of working with the body donor allowed our group to get together and decide how we wanted to memorialize our donor. This experience provided time to gather our thoughts and share with others what we felt.”

Expressing appreciation, giving thanks, and remembering the body donors for the gift they provided: “Sometimes it’s easy to get so caught up in dissections, structure lists and lab exams that you forget what an honor it is to have this opportunity and how thankful you are to the body donor. The memorial experience gave us a chance to remember.”

Reflecting on the experience of dissection and the anatomy lab: “Honestly, it didn’t hit me until the end when we had our moment of silence. Then, it finally hit me that we have come a long way since last September when we started with dissection. I thought back to how nervous I was with dissection and now I’m grateful to have had such a wonderful opportunity.”

Realizing how the body donors provided the unique opportunity to learn anatomy: “As I stood out on the lawn with my classmates, I reflected on myexperience over the last two semesters. My thoughts drifted back to my first initial cut, through the months to my last lab exam and I realized the significance of my body donor’s gift. He allowed me to learn, grow, and prepare for a significant change in life. For that, I am so grateful.”

Developing a new perspective on life and death: “ I have been blessed to have not experienced death on a personal level. All four of my grandparents are still living, and although I have attended funerals, they were for family members of close personal acquaintances and so my grieving was for my friends’ loss and not my own. Because I have not had to deal with death, the cadaver lab made death extremely real to me. It was an arduous task to go into lab where I knew I would be reminded of death. It was the Memorial Program that allowed me to put closure on my lab experience withmy cadaver because the program enabled me to reflect on death and realize that although death is indeed inevitable, there can be joy in remembering a life that once was.”

Providing emotional closure and paying respect to the body donor: “My mother passed away when I was a small child so I brought personal experiences with death into the cadaver lab. The days leading up to going into the lab were difficult on a personal level for me, in regards to my own emotions and other experiences that I was relating to dissection and lab. There were days in lab that were purely educational and nights at home that were emotional in reflection of the time spent in lab. The Memorial service provided much needed emotional closure to the experience. Had we just left lab on the last day, closed up our body donor and continued on our way I would have been left with thoughts swaying between educational and emotional.”