Question 21:  Will you donate your body
for use in medical science or education?

     If you answered the previous Question "yes",
indicating that you do want to donate your organs for transplant,
then you might answer this Question "yes", as well.

     Cadavers are needed by medical and dental students.
Before they get their hands on living bodies,
they must do their best to learn from cadavers.
This includes exploring all the internal organs of the human body.
And some people decide not to donate their bodies for this purpose
because they do not want their bodies dissected after death.

     But if you want to donate your body as a 'living cadaver'
after you have become permanently unconscious and been declared dead,
this is the place to make that plan explicit
and to get the agreement and cooperation of your proxies
and the doctors who will take care of you at the end of your life.
If these doctors have never heard of such an idea,
their first response will be negative:  No, it has never been done before.
But if you live a few more years, you might come to the end of your life
after other bodies have already been used as 'living cadavers'.
Then doctors in the most advanced medical centers
will be familiar with the practice and might agree to cooperate.
The first few such donations will be the most controversial.
But someone must start the process.

     If you wish to donate your body in any form to a medical school,
you need to obtain the proper forms from them.
Further information will also come with the forms,
telling you what will happen to your body
after it has been used for anatomical study, etc.
Usually the remains of your remains will be cremated
and the ashes will either be disposed of by the medical school
or returned to the next of kin for other disposal if so desired.
This could be more than a year after your death has occurred
—since several different students can study the same body.

     Again, the process of donating your body in any form
will go much more smoothly if you get written permission in advance.
Your proxies will simply call the medical school,
which will arrange for the transportation of the body.
The sooner they can get the body, the sooner they can start
their preparations to preserve it for anatomical study, etc.

174    YOUR LAST YEAR: CREATING YOUR ADVANCE DIRECTIVE FOR MEDICAL CARE