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。     

中菊头蝠七种组织LDH和MDH同工酶比较研究

翼手目动物是哺乳动物中能真正飞行的类群，关于这类动物的LDH和MDH同工酶的研究较少，故仅对中菊头蝠七种组织的LDH和MDH同工酶进行了初步研究和分析。     

"脑死亡"的价值与挑战

脑死亡是由当代科学和医学技术进步给我们带来的一个全新问题，也涉及到复杂的经济、社会、伦理和法律等问题。脑死亡的提出意味着对于生和死的判别由经验转向了科学；凸显了大脑和心脏在人的生命系统和自我认同中的不同地位。在相当长的时期内，对于大多数社会成员来说，脑死亡标准不一定意味着对于心死亡标准的截然取代。而是将与其并存。脑死亡的实施提出了抢救生命的价值、代价和极限问题，将对生命终结标准的选择权和宣判权提出挑战，也将对人们通常的“孝”和“敬”等观念提出挑战。脑死亡的一个重要价值是有利于器官移植，而让生命以此种方式得以延续值得提倡。因此应当以一种更加开放的和进步的心态来积极推进有关脑死亡的立法。     

藏成药七十味珍珠丸中矿物质元素在体内蓄积性水平研究

名贵藏成药七十味珍珠丸是传统藏药的典型代表,疗效显著.其中矿物类药的大量运用为现代医学科学不可理喻,给传统藏医药学的健康发展带来了困惑。以金诃七十味珍珠丸为研究材料,以Wistar大白鼠为试验对象,用等离子体发射光谱(ICP AES)和氢化物原子吸收光谱(HAAS)等分析仪器,测定了对照组和给药组实验动物在连续 1 8周试验期间心、肝、肾等组织器官中的矿物质元素含量水平,阐述金诃七十味珍珠丸中矿物质元素在动物主要组织器官中的长期蓄积性及其对生物机体的毒性效应     

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。