Medical Students Host Cadaver Memorial Service

The idea of donating your body to science is one most people have probably never thought about. However, to those people generous enough to will their cadavers to the gross anatomy lab at The Texas A&M University System Health Science Center College of Medicine, the students would like to say “thank you.”
Organized by the college’s first-year medical students, the Cadaver Memorial Service will be held Wednesday, January 12, 2005, at 11 a.m. in the lobby of the Joe H. Reynolds Medical Building on Texas A&M University’s west campus.
The memorial service is an annual event that allows gross anatomy students to publicly express their appreciation for the individuals who donated their bodies for the educational benefit of physicians-in-training.
“Gross anatomy is definitely very important to our education here,” first-year student Angie Wu said. “Sometimes we have to look at the cadavers as specimens, but we also really do remember they were once living people.”
Wu is helping to organize this year’s event, which will consist of a welcome from the class and two speakers. Dr. Wayne Sampson, professor and Gross Anatomy Course Coordinator, and Dr. Roy Smythe, College of Medicine Chair of Surgery at Scott & White Hospital, will both offer a few remarks, followed by a candle lighting ceremony.
Wu said she and her fellow students are grateful for the generosity of the people who donated their cadavers. “There’s no substitute for learning about the body first-hand and our cadavers allow us to do that. You just can’t learn to be a doctor from looking at pictures.”