Medical science students at Aberdeen benefit from the chance to work with real people's bodies, that have been donated after their death.

Hundreds of people from across north Scotland have signed up to donate their bodies in future - including Beyond Boundaries host Tamsin!

In this episode, Tamsin and Swathi learn about how and when bodies are donated, with the University's Regius Chair of Anatomy Prof Simon Parson.

Aberdeen is ranked 2nd in the UK for the study of Anatomy and Physiology in the 2025 Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide.

Learn more about studying at the University of Aberdeen, and find a prospectus here.

[00:00:08] Swathi: Okay,

Well, we should maybe start by letting you know that this episode is not gruesome, but if you struggle to listen to medical things or just don't want to hear discussion of death and dead bodies, [00:00:20] maybe go and listen to another Beyond Boundaries episode.

We've got episodes about psychology, AI, sports and nutrition, a real smorgasbord of topics.

But if you're still with us, this episode is totally fascinating. Welcome to the Beyond Boundaries podcast. I'm Tamsin, I studied law at the University of Aberdeen.

[00:00:42] Tamsin: For this episode, I've been talking to Simon Parson from the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition. He's got a very important job.

[00:01:15] Swathi: Wait, donations? Uh, what does he mean by donations?

[00:01:28] Swathi: No, I had no idea. I'm quite surprised.

[00:01:31] Swathi: Absolutely.

[00:01:35] Simon Parson: Our body donation programme, as has run at all the medical [00:01:40] schools in Scotland, virtually all the medical schools in the UK, you know, it's absolutely fundamental. But it relies on people's charity.

We struggle here because we don't have a big population. If you don't have many live people, you haven't got so many dead people. It's that simple. I look after the largest [00:02:20] part of the UK cause I run from here right up to the outer islands, but there's not many people in them.

[00:02:29] Tamsin: There's a couple of steps, but it's vitally important that you get all the paperwork right and make properly clear that it's your wish to have your body donated in this way once you die.

You have to do it yourself and you have to fill in the correct paperwork, not just put it in your will. Your will's not enough, unless it's really carefully worded. By the time you've carefully worded it, you might as well have done a bequest form.

Which is why we have a memorial service every year in the chapel for the families who donated that year and the students that we've taught, which will be in the first year, nearly 400 students that we'll invite, and that's a chance for them to come and we speak, we read out the [00:03:40] names, the students speak, they give pieces that they've written and it's a really nice piece of closure for them.

I think they struggle about coming about how they'll feel about it. I struggle about when I'm going sometimes about how I'll feel about it, but afterwards people are so pleased they've come.

[00:04:02] Elizabeth Donnelly: This is gratitude. As a medical student at the University of Aberdeen, it is a privilege to have the opportunity to study anatomy and learn from donors who cared enough for the advancement of medical education that they offered the precious gift of their [00:04:20] own body. This selfless act makes a difference to so many.

We have learned the anatomical structures, the terminology, Learned to understand the vasculature and nerves that sustained life. [00:05:00] We cannot know what gave those lives meaning, what made their eyes twinkle, or the cheeks blush, what quickened their pulse, or the music that made the neurons fire with excitement.

We have learned about [00:05:40] the airways, the mechanics of breathing and production of sound, yet not what inspired the laughter they produced, the whispers of love, or secrets shared. We may have discovered unique variations in their anatomy, but we do not know what made your loved one unique. [00:06:00] However, studying anatomy is not simply the physical being.

We are changed by learning through the generosity of our donors and their loved ones who have honoured their wishes. We are thankful to the families and loved ones of our donors who [00:06:40] have forgone the usual rituals of remembering a loved one, and instead entrusted them into our care. I pray that as the families and loved ones of our donors, you will take comfort and pride in knowing the impact of their precious gift and that their memory will live on.

Thank you.

[00:07:37] Swathi: I agree. I think that's really heart touching. [00:07:40] It's kind of an honour to have that special time to acknowledge the families as well and also the person.

Thank you so much, Elizabeth. And Tamsin, now let's hear more from your chat with Simon.

[00:08:05] Elizabeth Donnelly: I've got almost 2, 000 people who've signed up to donate. Now that might sound like a lot. It isn't really. That turns into maybe 50 to 60 offers a year, just over one a week. We can't [00:08:20] accept everybody. Sometimes the timing's difficult. Sometimes they have a condition which would make it difficult for us to have them in. If they're infectious etc, you can imagine there are problems. But we absolutely do our best we can to fulfill the requirements of that individual who really wanted to do this.

[00:08:40] Tamsin: They use them in a variety of ways, um, by students, researchers, and people that are already working in healthcare. The use also depends on the permissions that were given by the donor and their families. Here's Simon on how they can be used by surgeons.

And so all of the suppliers of the equipment brought in their newest equipment, ultrasound, freezing, high frequency radio waves, and we can train individuals on how to use those in their practice when they go back to their home countries. I think that's an amazing thing that we can do with a donation because we're helping [00:09:20] so many more people. You know, we help our students who might look after thousands of people in the future, but this is really now.. We train people to go back to the hospital to improve their care of patients. We also offer surgical rehearsal. This may also sound strange. A lot of surgeries now are very complicated, especially when you go back to do a [00:09:40] revision process. So often after complex removals of tumours, they have to go back and have another go because they haven't got everything removed.

And they might do that surgery the next day, the next week. And then they often call me and say, it went much better. It was smoother. It was quicker. And we hope there'll be a much, much better outcome. I think it's amazing for me. You know, one of the, one of the university's [00:10:20] 2040 (goals) is, you know, is about helping people in the local community and that's what this does. You know, so our local donations allow us to train our local surgeons to improve their work on our local people in our local hospital. Not that I'm local, if you can't tell.

[00:11:02] Simon Parson: Well, that's fantastic. I, I hope I won't be there because I hope I should have long retired before that, that occurs. But it's, it's quite unusual for younger people too. It's nearly always because there's a family connection. You know, we don't go to speak about it in schools.

[00:11:43] Swathi: I didn't know that you had been on the register, so that was really interesting.

[00:11:49] Swathi: Oh, that's, that's great.

[00:12:03] Swathi: That's a great service to the community.

[00:12:16] Simon Parson: When the body arrives, after we've decided, can we accept them? [00:12:20] I said, this is, you know, we, we absolutely try our level best to accept all donations, but sometimes we just can't. Usually because of health reasons, as in potential danger to our staff.

That hasn't been the case here for about 15 years. Isn't the case in very many medical schools anymore. I think actually it wasn't the best way to teach. [00:13:00] So we teach by what's called pro section now. So my staff pre dissect the bodies to show what we think needs to be seen. So we might open the chest to expose the lungs and the heart.

We can keep the whole body for up to three years. At the point of donation, you're asked two extra questions. [00:14:00] Is that, Can we keep some parts after three years and can we take any sort of imaging? The imaging is often for research purposes. So we do quite a lot of research projects and the imaging can be used for documentation that has to be covered.

So it's very carefully [00:14:40] maintained. Every piece is tagged. Everybody's got a unique number. Our bequeathal administrator is also a trained counsellor because people call us at such a difficult time. You know, they call us the day. That somebody's passed sometimes within hours of them passing because they know how important it was an individual so they can be incredibly [00:15:00] upset Sometimes a little worse for wear and she has to deal with a lot.

[00:15:30] Swathi: What does that mean?

The staff can basically cut up into the appropriate parts so students can work on them easier than having here's a whole body. Mm hmm. And then after that, if they keep some little parts or things like that, they log them, they know exactly what part is [00:16:00] where and what body it belonged to, what person it was.

So they'll know it as a number, but. they'll always know if they still have that person somewhere or bits of that person. So after three years they have to give back the majority of the body and then they can keep the rest up to 10 years, I think he said.

[00:16:22] Tamsin: Him and his bequeathal administrator, Aggie, that he mentioned before, they just sound like a dream team for being respectful and being kind to these bodies, but also using them to the best that they can, which is quite inspiring, really.

[00:16:45] Tamsin: "They're really useful for medical professionals from many different specialisms.

So like the very fine points of the blood supply to your skin and underlying tissue was not really ever that important. But when you wanted to cut a surgical flap to move to a part of the body, it's absolutely key that you know. where the blood [00:17:20] vessel comes in and precisely what it supplies. So you have to look at that and work out how to do that.

So when you've had a part of your body resected and there's a huge piece missing, they're the ones who come in and say, "how can we, how can we fix that? What can we put [00:18:00] back?" So we're training to cope with, you've just lost a finger. How do we make that look right now? You've had a tumor taken out from your jaw, the bones missing, the skin's missing, the overlying muscles missing.

And it's really important to feel you look yourself. So they, by incredible care, it's not some slapdash cut around the edges, off you go. You know, they're beautifully reconstructed. And the [00:18:40] surgical training is absolutely for those who are already qualified. So these are people in the training programmes for their specialties, so whether that be orthopaedics, whether it be neurosurgery, whether it be anaesthesia, they now know what track they're on and they're coming in for that specialist training.

We sometimes scan individuals at the hospital [00:19:20] to learn techniques and do things. I have to go check the area, check the place. How are we getting there? Who's going to be there? And I have to go on the day and I have to accompany a part out of the department. You know, it's, it's, it's very tightly regulated.

[00:19:49] Simon Parson: I think it's really important that we keep on doing this.

So I think it's, it's really important that we keep doing what we do. But also keep thinking, "what can we do more?" And we've talked a little bit before about surgery, and we've used [00:20:40] virtual reality to actually overlay the patient's anatomy onto the patient while they're being operated on. What we can do is we can scan the patient in advance, we can turn that into a 3D model, you can put it into the headset, and actually as you look at the patient to the skin, you can see what's underneath.

So, I'm not old [00:21:20] fashioned in that that's the only way, but I think it always remains an important way, even though we've got so many advances. I like to keep both.

[00:21:43] Simon Parson: So we have to spend some time teaching normal, because otherwise you wouldn't know what was abnormal. So if you've got a kidney with a cyst, you have to know what a normal kidney looks like, to know what one with a cyst looks like, to know it's got a cyst, to know there's something wrong with it. So, [00:22:00] abnormal versus normal is a key part of anatomical training.

We get a lot of pacemakers, replacement heart valves, um, when you look at the lung, it's really obvious usually where the person has lived actually. So Aberdeenshire is [00:22:40] very rural. Aberdeen's quite rural to be honest. If your lungs are healthy, they should be quite white, quite pink and quite soft. And sometimes I'll have a few little black marks in them and a student often says, Oh, that must've been a smoker.

It's from the air pollution. It's from the car. It's from whatever you do. It's from somebody else smoking next door before the smoking ban. But actually, it's quite clear in the lungs. But up here, they're often brilliant, because most people live out of town. [00:23:20] Absolutely beautiful. So it's really good to have both.

[00:23:40] Tamsin: So as a first year. medical student. What are we doing coming into your, into your space, I suppose? What's the first experience that they have with bodies?

Only for them. Not the prospective students. They, they don't because I don't know what they're going to decide to do. But the ones who have really committed, they've applied, they're coming through and they want to come to us on our offer holders day, they will have the chance. I like to show them how we're going to teach on those offer holders day.

And I said, I don't want that to be your first day. [00:24:40] So if you feel a bit queasy, tell somebody immediately and get sat down. You come in the door, everything on the first day will be covered, because I don't want you to walk in and get too much of a surprise. So we start with the parts, because parts are a little bit easier to get used to.

So we like to slowly, in the course of an hour, half an hour, we work them around in [00:25:20] sort of groups and talk to them and train them and get them. But yeah, we do it gently and respectfully. And so their first day is a bit of seeing a little bit of everything. Not really a teaching day. It's an introduction day.

I can't do this without the charity. And the charity is donors. When I talk about donors, they think I mean money. I said, I don't mean money. I mean, something much more important. I mean, them, themselves. It's the, it's the ultimate [00:26:00] philanthropic gift, isn't it?

[00:26:07] Simon Parson: Well, for a certain time I'd be able to cope because we have a stock. That stock would become more and more worn out and tired, and it would. degrade the way we could [00:26:20] teach. And I think ultimately I'd have to stop working in this way and I'd have to go completely to electronic plastic, which some medical schools do.

I mean, it's amazing. I am unbelievably grateful, as is everybody in our profession for that. You know, and we don't miss any opportunity, I hope, [00:27:00] to say how important this is. And how grateful we are that it is still progressing. Little pieces in the news often cause a spike of donations. There was an article in the Scotsman last week about a little bit of a shortage at the Royal College of Surgeons for doing training.

[00:27:28] Swathi: I was just thinking about how passionate Simon is about helping the students have that experience and with a lot of respect and care. So that's what I really loved about how Simon has put his heart into this work.

For him to do it in such a gentle manner while [00:28:00] trying to educate the next generation of healthcare professionals. It's, it's amazing. There's no other word for it.

[00:28:13] Tamsin: It kind of feels a lot more real. As he said, hopefully it's not for a long time yet, um, but I love to [00:28:20] know that my body will be improving the health outcomes and health care for people around me and in my own community once I've gone, because my body's not going to be use to me then, so at least it might be useful for our future professionals.

[00:28:42] Tamsin: Me neither, but it's so, so important. Thank you also to Elizabeth Donnelly for sharing that very moving tribute from the Memorial Service for the Donated Bodies.

[00:29:09] Tamsin: And check out the rest of the podcast to hear more from us. In each episode, we explore the groundbreaking research going on at Aberdeen.

[00:29:17] Tamsin: [00:29:20] Bye.