What Is Whole Body Donation?

Yes.  We encourage you to sign up for any donor program that interests you.  At the time of death, we work with other donor organizations and the next of kin/authorizing person to facilitate any and all donations possible.  A list of other donor organizations may be found here: Lions Gift of Sight, LifeSource, American Donor Services

No, at this time this option is not available.  The Program's core mission is to support anatomical education for the University of Minnesota Medical School.  Anatomical education is the foundation of a student's medical knowledge and is the first course they take during their first year of Medical School.  Therefore, the students are not knowledgeable enough at this time to diagnose or recognize diseases and conditions. Rather, they use this knowledge as they go forward in other curriculum courses such as pathology.

The Anatomy Bequest Program does not perform autopsies.

Yes.  The Program must reserve the right to decline individuals for a number of reasons.

The Anatomy Bequest Program has instituted a number of safeguards to make sure program donors are handled with dignity and respect.

All access to human donors has to be approved by the Anatomy Bequest Program Proposal Review Committee. The Committee reviews proposals in order to ensure that each proposed study has scientific merit, is consistent with the donor’s consent, and has controls in place to protect the donor’s identity and dignity.

Each anatomy student is required to review a standardized orientation presentation which reviews the Program’s policies. The Program requires all individuals who have access to donors to conduct themselves in accordance with established policies.  The Program prohibits the use of cellular phones in the anatomy laboratories as a way to prevent unauthorized images of the donors from being taken.  The Program also restricts access to the laboratories and only registered students, faculty, or researchers are permitted to have access to the human donors.

The Program, through policy creation, education, and outreach, works to create a culture that protects, values, and honors the individuals who have made anatomical gifts for the benefit of medical education and research.

Effective October 1, 2023, Anatomy Bequest Program will no longer accept the body donations of individuals who die outside of the state of Minnesota. 

When a death occurs outside of the state of Minnesota, the donor’s next of kin or authorizing person is responsible for contacting a donation program in the state where the death occurred or making alternate final disposition arrangements.

If you are a part time resident of the state of Minnesota, you may wish to register for whole body donation in more than one state. We encourage you to learn more about academic institutions in the United States that have whole body donation programs.

The director of the Program understands that they are asking grieving family members for a long period of commitment.  We hope that family members understand that they have the opportunity to have a funeral, with their loved one's remains present, prior to the donation process.  We do not want to delay or postpone the grieving process.

Before a donor's remains can be used to educate health care practitioners, the donor's remains need to be anatomically prepared.  The anatomical preparation process currently recommended requires arterial preservation. After arterial preservation, the donor's remains are isolated for a period of time to better eliminate the possibility of transmitting harmful microorganisms to students, staff, or researchers.

After isolation, the donor's remains are used for study in semester or yearlong courses.  The course assigned depends on the time of year.

We are one of the largest body donation programs in the U.S. and have significantly more staff and resources, as well as oversight, than most.

• Internally, we have strict procedures, as well as checks and balances, to ensure ethical and compliant practices throughout our program.
• We have a dedicated quality assurance staff member who audits our internal processes on both an assigned and random basis. She also performs vendor audits of our transportation and cremation vendors, which include unannounced site visits and inspections.
• We regularly undergo external audits and University-level review to ensure that all donor remains are accounted for.
• We routinely re-evaluate our processes to identify and mitigate any potential weaknesses.
• We have an Anatomy Bequest Program Proposal Review Committee, which serves as an institutional review committee and must approve all proposals before any study or course can be supported.

At this time there is no federal oversight of whole body donation. The director of our Anatomy Bequest Program, Angela McArthur, has been an outspoken advocate for more state and federal regulatory oversight of non-transplant anatomical donation for 20 years. She is also nationally recognized as a leader in both the ethics and accreditation processes of non-transplant donation.