Covid-19: Emerging Considerations for Body Sourcing and Handling. A Perspective View from Nigeria

The current Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has spread to about 220 countries of the world and has resulted in a significant number of deaths globally. Infections are still on the rise, and the impact on the global death rate could be devastating. There are fears over the likely impact of a large number of deaths on body sourcing and handling of cadavers for teaching and research. Historically, epidemics come with several challenges and have often led to some level of negligence of ethical practices and health and safety regulations associated with body sourcing and handling. The authors highlighted some emerging problems in this article, focusing on Africa and Nigeria in particular. These problems include a higher risk of coronavirus exposure for body handlers, shortage of cadavers for teaching and learning, a lack of standard regulations leading to unethical body sourcing and handling, and a lack of monitoring and collaboration needed for a well-coordinated Covid-19 pandemic response strategy. If these issues are ignored, the previous gains made in anatomical ethical practices may be destroyed. Some useful recommendations for policymaking geared toward prevention or curtailing these emerging issues have been instilled in this article.     

The Unintentional Effects on Body Donation Programs of a Competency-Based Curriculum in Postgraduate Medical Education

As medical programs place increasing importance on competency-based training and surgical simulations for residents, anatomy laboratories, and body donation programs find themselves in a position of adapting to changing demands. To better assess the demand for “life-like” cadaveric specimens and evaluate the possible impacts that competency-based medical education could have upon the body donation program of McGill University, Canada, the authors tracked, over the course of the last 10 years, the number of soft-embalmed specimens, along with the number of teaching sessions and the residents enrolled in competency-based programs that are using cadaveric material. The results reveal that the number of soft-embalmed specimens used within residency training increased from 5 in 2009 to 35 in 2019, representing an increase from 6% of bodies to 36.5% of the total number of body donors embalmed in this institution. Correspondingly, the number of annual teaching sessions for residents increased from 19 in 2012 to 116 in 2019. These increases in teaching are correlated with increasing number of residents enrolled in competency-based programs over the last 3 years (Pearson r ranging from 0.9705 to 0.9903, and R² ranging from 0.9418 to 0.9808). Those results suggest that the new skill-centered curricula which require residents to perform specific tasks within realistic settings, exhibit a growing demand for “life-like” cadaveric specimens. Institutions’ body donation programs must, therefore, adapt to those greater need for cadaveric specimens, which presents many challenges, ranging from the logistical to the ethical.     

A Bioethos for Bodies: Respecting a Priceless Resource

The value that willed body donors provide to medical education is priceless. Their precious gift helps to teach anatomy, spatial relationships between morphological structures, anatomical variation, and professionalism to medical students in a way that plastic models, podcasts, and lectures cannot. They are also an important resource for medical research and a wide variety of postgraduate training opportunities. While many body donation programs throughout the world are nonprofit organizations, there are body donation companies in the United States that sell donors for-profit. These “body brokers” have accumulated large profits from this business. It is incongruous that others would profit from such a priceless, freely donated gift. To prevent this incongruity, it is proposed that the international anatomical community develop a normative culture (a bioethos) for body donation programs. This would involve the conscious and systematic development of ethical principles for the day-to-day policies and practices of institutions that collect and use human bodies. With the development of this bioethos, a cultural shift in how donors are treated would occur and, over time, this would become the normal practice. These principles would become fundamental and foundational for the procurement and use of priceless human tissues.     

平凡的人 平凡的事——在南洋职业技术学院的演讲(摘要)

本人是鼋头渚风景区的园林职工,通过《平凡的人平凡的事》的讲演,汇报本人的生活经历和感触,谈对莘莘学子们的勉励和期望。     

20世纪初年的女子国民捐运动

本文主要通过对20世纪初年女子国民捐运动的考察,来探讨这一时期女子国民意识尤其是女子"义务意识"的觉醒及其发展。本文分三个部分:"女国民"意识的觉醒;女子国民捐运动的概况;女子国民捐运动的分析及其意义。     

校友情结:美国高校捐赠的主要动因

美国高校的捐赠收入已逐步成为高等教育发展的重要资金来源和缓解教育经费紧张的重要策略之一。其中,校友捐赠在资金来源中的比例逐年攀升,已成为不容忽视的捐赠力量。究其原因,校友情结是校友为母校捐赠的内在动因。美国高校校友会非常重视校友资本这一恒定持续的关系资源,采取各种措施加强与校友的联系,为高校的发展筹措源源不断的资金。     

高校社会捐赠：概念、类型与策略优化

我国高校办学经费历来以政府财政拨款为主,难以有效解决教育经费短缺问题。社会捐赠作为办学经费有益补充,我国高校社会捐赠主要有校友捐赠、企业捐赠、财团捐赠、乡贤捐赠、网络众筹等多种类型,社会捐赠为缓解国家财政经费投入压力提供了重要资金支持,但高校社会捐赠事业缺乏相关政策支撑与专业管理制度,高校自身普遍缺乏吸引力等状况很大程度上影响了高校社会捐赠的持续良性发展。为此,完善捐赠配套政策和外部政策激励、强化筹资运行保障、推动文化环境建设以及提升自身办学声誉是新时期高校社会捐赠高质量发展的重要策略。     

"黄禹锡事件"后韩国研究用人类卵子的法律规制研究

人类卵子在医学研究领域具有独特的价值,鉴于人类卵子具有人身性和伦理性,国际社会颇为重视研究用卵子的规制. 韩国科学家黄禹锡领导的研究团队因忽视人类卵子的伦理问题,采用不正当手段收集和使用人类卵子进行科学研究,引发了举世关注的"卵子风波". 韩国以此为鉴,及时总结黄禹锡事件的教训,颁布实施《生命伦理与安全法》并多次修改,作为对黄禹锡事件的积极回应.2008年的修订稿对卵子捐赠与胚胎干细胞研究等相关内容进行完善,分析与总结韩国的法律应对经验对我国具有一定的借鉴意义.     

The trend of body donation for education based on Korean social and religious culture

Until a century ago, Korean medicine was based mainly on Oriental philosophies and ideas. From a religious perspective, Chinese Confucianism was prevalent in Korea at that time. Since Confucianists believe that it is against one's filial duty to harm his or her body, given to them by their parents, most Koreans did not donate their bodies or organs for education in the past. However, by the end of the 20th century, a unique fusion of Western and Oriental medicines were produced on the Korean Peninsula, revolutionizing traditional perspectives on the human body, mortality, and the relationship of medical science to society. Koreans began to think about others' lives as well as their own by realizing the importance of donating one's organs and bodies for scientific purposes. Since then, the number of people donating their bodies to Korean medical and dental schools for the purpose of improving academic learning has increased dramatically. In response, Korean medical schools have begun to hold various types of funeral ceremonies to honor body donors. We have compared such ceremonies performed in Korea with those performed in the United States of America and Taiwan. These ceremonies are viewed as a suitable way to pay proper respect to the dead and to promote knowledge about body donation programs in Korea. Overall, the transition of religions and social ethics in Korea has greatly facilitated body bequeathal programs, benefiting both medical education and the Korean public health administration.