First-year medical student Daniel Kula has learned from many doctors at the University of Vermont, but perhaps his most valuable lessons came from one no longer alive: a physician who donated his body for educational use.

Peter Alden, M.D., a former UVM professor of medicine and internist, was among the donors to UVM’s Anatomical Gift Program whom the Class of 2018 honored Saturday during the annual Convocation of Thanks memorial service at Ira Allen Chapel. The ceremony is held for the families of the individuals who bequeath their bodies to UVM’s College of Medicine upon their deaths.

“It really felt like a passing-on-the-torch kind of thing to the next generation of doctors,” Kula says. “There’s a lot to be said for the bond that was built between the six students who worked with this donor.”

During the convocation ceremony, the students recognized the varied professions and backgrounds of the 43 donors – including a homemaker, farmer, teacher, truck driver, newspaper editor, artist, insurance agent and a Vermont state senator – who assisted their Human Structure and Function course. A total of 78 family members responded to the convocation invitation – the largest response to date, says Amanda Bechtel, director of the Anatomical Gift Program in the UVM College of Medicine’s Office of Medical Student Education.

“We teachers, we consider this their first patient,” says Ellen Black, Ph.D., associate professor of neurological sciences and course director for Human Structure and Function, said of the donors. “And being able to respect the dead is part of being able to respect the living.”

The convocation is meant to provide a catharsis for the donors’ families, some of whom might not have known about or supported the deceased loved one’s decision to give his or her body to science, Black said. But it does the same for many students who struggled in class with the concept of handling a real person who had a real life, she said.

“For me, it was the hands, the nail polish,” Black says of her own response in anatomy lab. “My grandmother used to let me paint her nails. That was a real visceral experience for me.”

Many students write letters to the donors’ families, and Grace Adamson read from hers during the ceremony, citing the respect she had for the sacrifice the donors and families make.

“I often squeezed her hand at the beginning and end of class to thank her,” Adamson says, tearing up as she recalled the woman who died of metastatic cancer. “I will carry the lessons I learned from her throughout my entire career.”

The ceremony allowed the students to share not only their appreciation and sentiments with the donors’ families but also their many talents: Elizabeth Carson, Emily Forbes-Mobus, Kelsey Sullivan and Vicenta Hudziak sang; Theresa Flanagan, Michael Ohkura and Adam Petchers performed in a string trio; and Catherine Hayes and Lana Khuong played a flute-and-piano piece.

“You can get very drawn in to the minutiae and the science of what you’re doing in the lab, and it’s really nice to take a step back and see the big picture,” Carson said after the ceremony. She and Andrew Seong led the student planning committee that organized the event.

“It’s really an important reminder that every patient comes from a family, a background, an occupation,” she says. “All of that goes into being who they are and their health.”

The contributions that the donors make to the students’ education translates to every patient those students will care for, says Lauren Arms, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurological sciences, during her faculty address at the convocation. “The number of people donors touch is huge in magnitude.”

PUBLISHED

04-27-2015
Carolyn Shapiro