OU medical students honor body donors at thanksgiving service
University of Oklahoma’s first-year medical students gathered for an unusual thanksgiving celebration earlier this month, to show appreciation to their teachers who couldn’t use words.
The school holds an annual appreciation service at the end of the first semester for the families of their body donors, who can meet the students who dissected their loved ones. The families who wished to participate also had a chance to meet the students for a luncheon in August.
Taylor Campbell, a firstyear student, said she has found herself looking for her donor, Arthur Buswell, in old photos displayed at the medical school. Buswell graduated from the school after serving as a medic in World War II, and
His children, Brian Buswell and Barbara Vauken, said their father was clear about wanting his body to contribute to other students’ educations.
“He would hope they learned something,” Vauken said.
“We learned a lot,” Campbell assured them. “More than I could have imagined.”
At the thanksgiving event, several students and professors spoke about the donors’ contributions to medical education. They also presented families with a white rose and unveiled a plaque with the donors’ names that will hang in the basic science education building.
Nancy Halliday, professor of cell biology, said students naturally develop some professional distance while doing dissections. Learning about who the donors were in life teaches students to balance that distance with empathy, so they are better prepared to see their patients as people with lives, not just maladies, she said.
“Whatever your loved one’s profession was in life, you can add another accomplishment — honorary professor,” she said.
Most medical schools that use donated bodies to teach students hold a memorial or thanksgiving ceremony, according to Association of American Medical Colleges, but meeting family members of a specific donor is relatively rare.
Alison Whelan, chief medical education officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges, said despite advances in lifelike mannequins and computer models, there’s no substitute for donors, whose bodies show the variation students can expect to find in their patients. Not everyone’s anatomy will be exactly like the textbook example, and students need to be prepared for what they may see, she said.
“It sends a really important message about the complexity of people and the complexity of the human body,” she said.
Russell Postier, interim executive dean at the OU College of Medicine, said learning anatomy is vital for medical students, but it also can be “overwhelming” and “uncomfortable.”
“What I think this program does and this evening does is create a culture of respect and humility,” he said.
Ana MohammadZadeh, one of the medical students, said meeting the wife and children of Wally Kerr before the semester enriched her experience both academically and emotionally. The stories about Kerr’s active life gave her and the other students more context as they examined his muscles, she said, and gave them something to share in uncomfortable moments.
“Knowing that we had the blessing of the family ... I think that made me a little more comfortable,” she said.
Kerr’s daughter, Lydia Kerr, said she appreciated the respect students showed, and their interest in his life. At the luncheon in August, they wanted to know details about his work, how he grew up and their family life, she said.
At the November event, the Kerr family came prepared with photos of some of their father’s projects, and sweatshirts he had printed with images of wildflowers. They even gave one to Mohammad-Zedah when she asked if he had put any up for sale, Kerr said. Overall, the experience of meeting the students “inspired” her and siblings, Kerr said.
“It took something kind of morbid, a little bit macabre, and turned it into a beautiful tribute,” she said. “My father would have loved to be a professor.”