The University of Washington Department of Biological Structure is looking for a few good stiffs. Although they get three to eight requests a day for information from people who consider donating their bodies to the medical school, they actually receive about 200 bodies a year, which is "never quite enough," according to program coordinator Pat Breen. Bodies donated to the UW provide cadavers for students in Washington, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska.

If you qualify, body donation is the best way to beat the high cost of dying. After about two years of lab duty, cadavers are cremated and buried in a University-owned plot where a plaque recognizes "those who have donated their remains for the advancement of medical science and education." Or the UW will ship what's left of you to any place your family designates in the U.S. or Canada. They pay for disposal, unless your family wants an individual marker or more elaborate private arrangements.

If you die in Seattle, pick-up is free; there's a sliding scale for picking up donors who die outside of the city, but within range of the UW (from south King County to Everett). On occasion, people who die away from home can be taken by the nearest medical school, as long as they carry a written release indicating their wish to donate their bodies to science. In any event, time is of the essence. Bodies have to be checked in within 24 hours (in summer, that limit can shorten considerably).

As with other kinds of deathcare, body donation works best if you plan ahead. This means registering with the medical school-not relying on someone to find your will in time to learn of your intended donation. Write to Dept. of Biological Structure, Box 357420, Seattle, WA 98195, or call 206-543-1860 to ask for the basic information.

Also, have a Plan B ready in case your body is rejected. Severely contagious diseases (AIDS, TB, hepatitis, meningitis, the plague), autopsy, obesity, extravagant mangling, and prior embalming disqualify bodies from the program. Also, cancer usually debilitates bodies to a point where they fall apart when dissected.

Some bodies don't get into medical school because they have donated organs in emergency rooms en route to the UW. Because of urgent need, organ donation takes precedence over whole body donation, in cases where benevolent donors bequeath organs and body. While many people have their drivers licenses stamped to indicate their willingness to be organ donors or discuss their intention to do so (and put it in writing) with family members, a more likely scenario has the family being asked to give away your organs after an accident has left you brain-dead. Unlike whole body donors, organ donors don't get their bodies disposed of for free. To find out more about the organ donor program, contact Life Center Northwest at 206-230-5767.

In his 1992 classic, Sell Yourself to Science (Loompanics), Jim Hogshire describes a wacky negotiation ploy where relatives of an organ donor can "sell" the organs by getting the hospital to forgive all outstanding medical bills in exchange for permission to harvest organs from the brain-dead loved one. Reasonable as it may seem for those who part with their organs or bodies to be paid, such payment is, as Hogshire admits, illegal. Moreover, given the narrow window of opportunity the medical school has to claim the remains (and the many causes for rejection), prepayment for bodies is unfeasible. If you're considering grave robbery or simple murder, no medical school in the U.S. pays for bodies. The donation of your body is not tax deductible and, regrettably, does not come with a nifty heel tattoo proclaiming, "Property of the UW Medical School."

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Contents this page were published in the March/April, 1998 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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