Medical students count on cadavers

Ahead of next week's Qingming Festival, Beijing Red Cross has announced that 13,441 people have signed up to donate their bodies to science since the society started a body donation registry in 1999.

However, medical students and professionals have appealed for more residents to donate their bodies, as there is still a lack of cadavers to train future doctors.

Medical teachers, students and body donors' families gathered in front of the "Life" memorial at the Changqingyuan Cemetery in Chaoyang district on Saturday, in a ceremony to pay respect to those who have donated their bodies.

According to the Red Cross, 6,920 out of the 13,441 people have had their donation application notarized, and so far, medical schools and research institutions have received 1,230 cadavers.

In 2011, 142 cadavers were donated to the three body donation registry centers in Beijing, located at the Capital Medical University, Peking Union Medical College and Peking University (PKU).

Jin Duo, head of the registration center at the medical department of PKU, told the Global Times yesterday that more than 100 people registered at their center to donate their bodies last year, and they received 45 cadavers out of the 100.

"We accept any volunteer who wants to donate their body, except if they suffered from a malignant infectious disease. All the bodies we receive are used for medical research, such as teaching students anatomy, so they won't be used for organ transplantation," he said.

The program for body donations started in Shanghai in 1982 and then expanded to many first and second-tier cities in China.

The donors represent all walks of life, from manual labourers and farmers to students, professors, even government officials, Jin said.

The donation station inside PKU was founded in 1999. They only received 10 cadavers each year at the very beginning.

"The number of donors is increasing, especially in the last two years, but it's still too low to meet educational demands," Jin noted.

Despite the growing willingness of Chinese citizens to donate their bodies in recent years, medical schools and institutions are still complaining about a shortage of cadavers.

Zhao Cheng, a junior medical student at the Clinical Medicine School of Basic Medical Sciences at PKU, said that around 10 students have to share one cadaver in many classes at his university.

"But the optimal condition is four students per body. I think the situation in my university is better than some other ones, where more students study one cadaver during a class," he said.

Zhao noted that many donors are educated people, such as university professors or officers from the People's Liberation Army. Many people living in the countryside are still against the concept of body donation, which is considered disrespectful to the deceased.

"Some would-be donors abandon the idea of donation due to strong disapproval from their relatives. I think we need more publicity about body donation," Zhao said.

Some people also worry that their organs or body might be sold for commercial purposes.

"We are banned from doing that. And some donors are infected with severe disease, so the major organs in bodies usually can't be used for transplantation," said Jin.

At the ceremony on Saturday, students from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, which teaches Traditional Chinese Medicine, and which also needs cadavers for anatomy students, joined in the calls for a memorial day to honor people who donate their bodies to medical science, so as to encourage more people to be volunteers.

They hoped to launch the day around Tomb-sweeping Day or Double Ninth Festival, held on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, known today as Senior's Day, according to the Beijing Times.

The Shanxi Evening News reported last week that Shanxi Province has decided to set April 1 as a memorial day for body donors.