The donation of a cadaver, like those made through Albany Medical College’s Anatomical Gift Program, offers early doctors a personal and emotional connection to their profession, while offering donor families solace from their loved one’s gift. WAMC was there as dozens of families gathered to celebrate those who donated their bodies for research.
Victoria Turkington, a student at Albany Medical College, says that working with a cadaver offered she and her classmates the chance to sit “with the humanity” of their studies.
“It's an emotional experience, because caring for people is supposed to be,” Turkington said. “There's a reason that we say that our donor is our first patient. During lab, you start to see how balancing technical understanding and learning with connection and humanity will be a lifelong walk on a tightrope, no matter the technical task ahead, you will always have to advocate for and appreciate the tremendous gift of trust that your patients share with you - you and your loved ones trusted us unconditionally to honor them, and that is not something that any of us take lightly.”
Turkington, a member of the class of 2028, says the opportunity to learn from the donated cadavers, prepares medical students to hold, mindfully, the hands of the patients they will care for in the future.
To honor the 171 people who donated their bodies to Albany Medical College’s Anatomical Gift Program in the last year, a recent ceremony was held at the Albany Rural Cemetery to unite the families of the deceased with those who are now learning from them.
59-year-old woman Dewaina Mullis succumbed to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in April 2024. Mullis’ niece Kayla Landon says Mullis left her family with a sense of satisfaction for the gift she left behind.
“I had faith in that everyone would be respectful, and that this is something to better people and for people to learn from. So, I was proud of her more than anything,” Landon said.
Her aunt’s decision to donate her body was a reflection of the type of person she was, Landon said.
Landon, and her aunts, one of whom is Mullis’ twin, wore pink shirts to honor Mullis.
“Oh gosh, she was a light – you can see from the shirts. Her smile lit up the room. She was always laughing, always smiling, yes, yes,” Landon said. “She had a great laugh, she loved helping other people. You know, even just walking by someone, she had to always give a compliment. She has a twin sister, as well, who is very similar. And we, we just miss her dearly. She, she was definitely an integral part of our family.”
Mullis, who was diagnosed in December, and died five months later, was in hospice when she made the decision to donate her body for educational purposes.
During the event, family members and medical students placed flowers on a casket intended to represent the 171 people who supported the college’s research and education agenda.
After medical student Beatrice Barbesino’s grandmother died from Alzheimer’s disease, she was consoled by a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. She read from it at the cemetery:
“Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. I'm 1,000 winds that blow. I'm the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush. I am the Swift, uplifting rush of quiet birds encircled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand on my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die,” Barbesino read.
