Medical students honor those who donated their bodies

The general anatomy course is the centerpiece of a UW Medical School student’s education, the place in which he or she first learns to dissect and analyze a human body. It’s designed to be a clinical, academic experience, but the gift that underlies it is anything but.

Last week, a group of first-year students offered thanks to a group of unheralded contributors who make the class uniquely human: those who donated their bodies to the advancement of medical science.

For the fifth consecutive year, first-year medical students held a special ceremony Jan. 22 to show gratitude and respect, and to reflect on the significance of their classroom experiences.

“It seems only right that we try, in some small way, to say “thank you’ to the people who did this amazing thing for us,” says Nicole Krumrei, a first-year medical student from Waukesha who helped to organize this year’s ceremony.

During the ceremony, Edward Schultz, chair of the Department of Anatomy, read a letter of appreciation, class mentor Sandra Osborn spoke, as did John Reed, a McFarland resident whose wife donated her body to the Medical School. The ceremony closed with students coming forward to light a candle in memory of each donor.