Medical students look at cadaver parts being used for demonstration.
Rick Madonik/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Most states permit government officials to donate unclaimed bodies to medical schools, with no legal requirement for prior approval from the deceased or their next of kin.
The handling and disposition of human bodies raises all sorts of ethical and legal questions.
Jupiterimages/The Image Bank via Getty Images
The short answer: It’s complicated – and depends, in part, where you live.
Donors’ bodies lie covered in an anatomy lab at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.
Sebastian Gollnow/picture alliance via Getty Images
The lessons students learn from dissecting donor bodies go beyond anatomy – and they try to pay that gift forward.
These Georgetown University medical students used donated cadavers in their anatomy class in 2011.
Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images
This particularly physical kind of philanthropy caught on in the mid-20th century.
shutterstock.
Why you should consider donating your body to research once you die.
Cadaver-based teaching prepares students intellectually and emotionally to deal with the challenges they will face in their health sciences careers.
Dr Tobias Houlton
Dissection is important for developing a range of skills, as well as moral and ethical training and a humanistic approach to patient care.
After death, your body can contribute to medical research and knowledge.
Anatomy Insider/Shutterstock
Dissection also plays an important role in introducing students to death. It provides moral and ethical training for students as well as a humanistic approach to patient care.