# Donating body to science



## Lizard (27 May 2009)

If I was to donate my body to science, would I be paid before my demise, or after? Can't find any information on the net about the financial rewards of body donation, if indeed there are any!


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## Smashbox (27 May 2009)

I don't think you get any financial reward, your reward is that you are helping discover things!

There are 1,200 on the list at Trinity


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## NicolaM (27 May 2009)

You might find it difficult to find someplace to take you!
(Seriously. There is, as far as I know, an over supply of bodies)

If you did get accepted, I think (from memory) all the recompense is a burial at the end, when you are no longer of any use (ie fully dissected etc).
Yeuck.

Nicola


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## Caveat (27 May 2009)

Lizard said:


> Can't find any information on the net about the financial rewards of body donation, if indeed there are any!


 
Er...think the clue might be within the phrase "*donating *body to science" 

If it's a donation, there is usually no remuneration. 

I could be wrong about this specific case, but it never crossed my mind that anyone would be actually paid for this.


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## NicolaM (27 May 2009)

Well.....It does save on burial costs...

Nicola


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## Caveat (27 May 2009)

NicolaM said:


> If you did get accepted, I think *(from memory)* all the recompense is a burial at the end,


 
So have you been reincarnated or something?


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## NicolaM (27 May 2009)

Har har..
I personally haven't been accepted...Yet


Nicola


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## Smashbox (27 May 2009)

They creamate you or bury you in the Uni plot in Glasnevin, thats the reward!


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## NicolaM (27 May 2009)

In fact, on a serious note, there is a ceremony every so often for the people who have donated their bodies.
I can't remember who it is through, the Universities with medical schools perhaps

Nicola


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## rory22 (27 May 2009)

Seen it all now equity release for your body, have we learned nothing from the property market!


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## Squonk (27 May 2009)

[broken link removed]


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## csirl (27 May 2009)

How about donating your body to the German guy who does plastination? Or becoming the star of a major show touring the world such as the "Bodies" exhibition.


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## Smashbox (27 May 2009)

csirl said:


> Or becoming the star of a major show touring the world such as the "Bodies" exhibition.


 
Please don't. I'm going on Sunday and don't want to see any of yous there


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## Lizard (29 May 2009)

I thought so :-( 

Live life like it was your last day, because someday it will.


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## Lizard (29 May 2009)

Csirl now I like your kind of thinking


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## Lizard (29 May 2009)

Nicola, I suppose I could find out about cash rewards at one of these ceremonies?


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## UptheDeise (29 May 2009)

Apparently there is a shortgage of politicians' donating their brains. The scientists desperately want politicians' brains.

Why? Because they're worth a fortune as they've never being used!!!


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## johnd (29 May 2009)

I wouldn't donate my body to medical science after seeing photos from friend who worked in a photo Lab. The photos showed students with the bodies propped up into a sitting position with their arms around the students. Others showed the bodies lying with the students posed with knives pretending to stab the body Dracula style.   One particular one showed a donor body with a pipe in his mouth dressed in an old coat and scarf. He looked like a very odd snowman. Even though I was a young man myself I was shocked that this was allowed to happen.  No respect or dignity was given to the body and it as just a laugh to the students!


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## Smashbox (29 May 2009)

Thats awful. Surely the students would have gotten into trouble had their superiors known what they were doing.


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## johnd (29 May 2009)

Smashbox - sure they would have been in trouble  if staff had seen them but juding from the photos I had seen the room had only students in it. Looked like maybe 4 students around each steel table with a body on it so one table wouldn't necessary know what the others was doing. This group was abusing the body which is why I would not donate or encourage others to do it either.


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## franmac (29 May 2009)

smashbox said:


> please don't. I'm going on sunday and don't want to see any of yous there :d



:d:d:d


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## Staples (29 May 2009)

johnd said:


> I wouldn't donate my body to medical science after seeing photos from friend who worked in a photo Lab. The photos showed students with the bodies propped up into a sitting position with their arms around the students. Others showed the bodies lying with the students posed with knives pretending to stab the body Dracula style. One particular one showed a donor body with a pipe in his mouth dressed in an old coat and scarf. He looked like a very odd snowman. Even though I was a young man myself I was shocked that this was allowed to happen. No respect or dignity was given to the body and it as just a laugh to the students!


 
I heard stories like that before.  It's disrespectful of course but not entirely surprising.  I'd hate to think that the corpse of anyone close to me would be subject to such ridicule and would definitely discourage any attempt to make such a gesture to society.


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## Complainer (30 May 2009)

johnd said:


> I wouldn't donate my body to medical science after seeing photos from friend who worked in a photo Lab. The photos showed students with the bodies propped up into a sitting position with their arms around the students. Others showed the bodies lying with the students posed with knives pretending to stab the body Dracula style.   One particular one showed a donor body with a pipe in his mouth dressed in an old coat and scarf. He looked like a very odd snowman. Even though I was a young man myself I was shocked that this was allowed to happen.  No respect or dignity was given to the body and it as just a laugh to the students!


When I met up with an old school friend who had done 1 year's dentistry training in TCD, he asked me 'were you one of the ones I brought in to mess with the dead bodies?'. I wasn't, as it happened.


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## NicolaM (30 May 2009)

johnd said:


> The photos showed students with the bodies propped up into a sitting position with their arms around the students. Others showed the bodies lying with the students posed with knives pretending to stab the body Dracula style.   One particular one showed a donor body with a pipe in his mouth dressed in an old coat and scarf. He looked like a very odd snowman.



That is rather horrifying.
Bodies for use for training purposes for medical/dentistry students were generally  preserved in formaldahyde, so quite aside from the dis-respect,  that would seem like a remarkably stupid thing to do.(ie the students would get covered with formaldehyde, as well as touching the dead bodies, which is a whole other aspect of horribleness.)

Nicola


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