I am an Organ Donor

I am an Organ Donor

As we stood over the precisely dissected bodies, trying to distinguish between the phrenic and vagus nerves, the greater and lesser omentums, and the left and right gastroepiploic arteries, I inadvertently looked away from my prosection and saw Stephanie (one of the TAs) walking across the room carrying a human head face down against her palm. This sight forced me to recognize a truth about these prosections; these body pieces, picked clean of fat and connective tissue, were at one time all components of a complete, living human being like each of us enrolled in Human Anatomy 101L. When I reached Stephanie’s station I found that I couldn’t concentrate on the facial arteries or the various muscles that help us pucker-up or smile. Instead, I kept staring at the final facial expression of a once living, breathing, elderly man who seemed to have taken a quite unpleasant exit from the living world. And now that man, or at least his head, had ended up on a HA 101L classroom bench being poked and prodded by a complete stranger.

There were three completely stocked human anatomy labs holding a total of six classes every week during the 1992 winter quarter. Spread thoughout each lab room were six different stations displaying six different viewpoints of that day’s featured body system. Also located in these lab rooms, but off limits to us, was “the room behind the closed door.” Every so often, when the door was carelessly left ajar, we did manage to grab a peek of the secret room beyond. Filling every cubic inch (50 ft deep, 20 ft wide & 20 ft high) of the room lying beyond the door were steel gurneys stacked upon one another; upon each layer were sealed plastic bags containing cotton cocoons of corpses wa...

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...e tremendously difficult. The bright pink of my donor dot standing out blatantly against the white background of my driver’s license acted like flypaper for so many negative verbal images that I eventually peeled off the little piece of printed paper and wiped away the remaining glue.

At the time of the dot’s removal, I had no more experience with donor programs than did any of my storytellers. However, this year, I have gotten much better acquainted with such programs through my anatomy class and visiting medical schools across the country. I realize that some of the horrific stories may actually have some truth to them, but I also have learned a great deal about who and what actually goes on behind those closed doors. In fact, I’ve learned so much that the little pink sticker is standing out against the white background of my driver’s license once again.