Bryant's Story: ‘I see dead people’

Cadavers
By Bryant Vega

The famous quote “I see dead people” from the movie “Sixth Sense” takes on new meaning on the third floor of the USU Biology of Natural Resource building.

Upon entering the cadaver lab, there are seven silver metal tables with body bags on top of them that look as if they were from scenes in a movie. On the ceiling there are huge vents to suck out the smell of dead bodies and phermaldahyde. Outside, the words mortui vivos docent appear by the door: “The dead teach the living.”

In Andy Anderson’s case, this saying is literal and these words have meaning. A professor at Utah State with a degree in medical microbiology who has been teaching for 25 years, Anderson teaches a variety of health-related courses including: Human Anatomy (Biol 2010), Human Dissection (Biol 4000), Human Physiology (Biol 2000), Bioethics (Biol 3100), and Elementary Microbiology (Biol 1110).

“Our job is to let these dead people teach us,” says Anderson, “we skin them, cut them into pieces, take out their brains and eyeballs, cut them in different angles… We do this so that people like you can learn on dead people so later on in your lives and in careers you don’t make a mess out of living people and that is a very good ethical justification for doing what we do.”

The cadavers are a very popular and important teaching utility; dozens of High school groups, college students, which include pre-med, pre-dental, and even some art students, paramedics, and EMT’s all tour the lab throughout the year to explore the inner and outer workings of the human body. “I don’t know how I can teach anatomy without them says Anderson.”

These teaching tools, or human bodies, are actually purchased from the University of Utah at a cost of around $1,250. But like the rest of the economy, the price of the cadavers will soon increase to around $1,350 says Anderson. Seven bodies are bought each year.

Before death, people volunteer in the cadaver donor program run by U of U Professor Kerry Peterson. He runs the program and advertises to let people know that “if we want physicians and medical people to learn we need cadavers.”

He gets well over 100 bodies a year and works very closely with the families of the deceased. As soon as that person dies the family calls him and he picks the body up from the house or nursing home or wherever it is they die and embalms them. “Not just a little bit, but so they can sit out on those tables all year long,” says Anderson.

“When they arrive they look like sleeping people just like you and I, they have a very nice color to them, they have special dyes so they have lifelike appearance. And as soon as we skin them things start to go downhill because then they dry up.”

Some people are concerned about the ethics of working with cadavers everybody here is a volunteer and the reason they wanted to be a volunteer is so that future generations can learn.

Another controversy over using cadavers is the religious argument. Some people see using cadavers as sacrilegious. “I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject and in my opinion whatever made the people living spiritual beings is gone whatever spiritual essence they had left, left a long time ago and went to a better place.” Says Anderson. “So we have no problem from an ethical or religious point of view in working with cadavers and I tell the visitors don’t worry about it either this is where they wanted to be,” referring to the people before they died.

In the lab over each body there is a name a number and a brief description of the bodies. When dissecting them the bodies are called out by name such as Beth, who died at 81, William who died at 67 etc. This is done in respect of the living that died.

When the bodies are all “used up” the bodies are taken back to U of U to be put in the oven for about two hours reduced to ashes and put into a box. The box is then taken back to the family if they want the ashes back. If the families opt not to take them back then the ashes are buried in a group grave north of the capitol building in Salt Lake City. “The tombstone reads In memory of those who have donated their bodies to advance medical education and science.”

Even more Peterson holds a memorial every year for the cadavers so that the families and medical students can come pay their respects.

Andersons only rule for respecting the cadavers is “no one can make fun of the cadavers… we pay our debt to these families by letting us have them.”

Anderson has his own plans to be a cadaver when he dies. “I am going to be the only faculty member at USU who continues to teach after they die,” said Anderson, “I want my head to be kept and you can specify things like that.”

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