U-M honors body donors: They are indispensable

In a packed auditorium of grieving and proud families, the man with the large portrait stood out.

Joe Garcia, a Toledo man whose wife had donated her body to science, was attending a memorial service honoring his partner of 35 years. Before leaving home, he grabbed her framed portrait off the wall and brought it along for all to see.

University of Michigan biomedical engineering student Barry Belmont spotted the man and his picture right away — and was moved to tears as he addressed the crowd of 1,000 people who attended a memorial service honoring those who donated their bodies to the Ann Arbor school for use in medical and scientific research.

“I looked at the audience and I saw the picture. And I wanted to break down and weep,” Belmont recalled. “It was one of the loveliest things I have ever seen. ... It touched my heart.”

Belmont, a graduate student who helps design high-tech surgical tools, was among several U-M students who spoke at the annual ceremony, a longtime tradition that allows students to thank donors' families, and explain how their bodies are used to help advance medicine.

U-M receives roughly 300 anatomical gifts per year, and has more than 7,000 future donors already registered. Following the study of the donor's body, the remains are cremated and buried at a university cemetery. Families can request the ashes be returned, but must do so in writing.

The annual memorial service is intended to honor what could be considered a medical student’s first patient — the individual who donated their body to science so that others could learn and help advance medicine. Donors are essential to medical education and research, and give students firsthand knowledge of the human body as anatomy courses are among the first and most important in the education of physicians, dentists, nurses, physical therapists and other health professionals. The books can only teach so much.

Belmont said donors can’t be thanked enough, stressing their gifts are indispensable to the field of medicine.

And he had plenty of firsthand experience to share: He talked about how he has helped design an electrical scalpel that helps neurosurgeons perform brain operations more precisely, and a nasal bone grinder that helps surgeons grind away at a bone behind the nose so that they can get to the brain.

Belmont said he was able to do this because he had real human brains to work with. He also noted that engineers need real humans to test bone drills to make sure orthopedic surgeons aren’t working with drills that overheat, or make shifts in bones that are dangerous.

“I can drill metal, wood, plastic and even cow bones,” Belmont said in an interview with the Free Press. “But at a certain point, it has to be used on a person. And anatomical donors — they’re the first step. They are the spearheads into medical research. Without them, it doesn’t advance.”

Belmont's theme at the memorial service was about helping people live better and longer, whether minutes, or years. He noted that a scalpel incision could decide whether a stroke person remembers their child's name or loses their ability to talk, or whether a parent lives long enough to see a child's graduation or wedding.

"Every anatomical donor adds about a minute to everyone's life," Belmont told the crowd.

As Belmont spoke, Garcia sat quietly next to his wife’s framed portrait, in awe of everything he was hearing. His wife, Diane Hymore, who died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in January at the age of 58, was helping mankind in huge, huge ways.

“They needed her brain and her brain stems,” Garcia said, noting it was his wife’s wishes to donate her body so that a cure for her disease may one day be discovered. “One of those people might find something that helps humanity. ... That’s what she always wanted.”

He added: "I’m proud of her."