106 - Claiming the Dead: Who Has Legal Access to the Unclaimed?

Poster Board Number: 106
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Co-authors:

Monica Zimmerman, DPT - Associated Faculty, PT and PA, Elon University; Cynthia Bennett, MD - Associate Professor, PA, Elon University; Gytis Balilionis - Elon University; John Magill - Assistant Professor, PT, Elon University; Dianne Person - Director AGP, Elon University

Abstract Body : As the numbers of US Medical Education programs and students in them continue to rise, so does the demand for cadavers. Anatomists meet their needs for cadavers in a variety of ways including first person consent anatomical donation, next of kin donation, or in some cases utilization of the bodies of non-consenting unclaimed dead persons.

State laws vary as to the length of time a body must be held prior to a medical school being permitted to dissect the body.

The purpose of this study is to review state laws and assess for relationships between the numbers of state reported unclaimed dead persons, medical schools, AGP’s, number of days unclaimed dead are held prior to dissection, and state poverty levels.

Methods
State laws and population statistics were assessed. Number of reported unclaimed dead persons was acquired from NamUS, a national bank for reporting missing and unclaimed persons.
Pearson correlation was used to assess for the extent of linear relationships between numbers of unclaimed dead persons, medical schools, AGP’s, number of days on medical school hold until dissection is allowed, and poverty levels in each state.

Results
All states presently have laws regarding the management of unclaimed dead persons. 38 states provide medical schools access to the unclaimed prior to cremation and or burial.

The required medical school hold until dissection range from: 0-90, (median: 24, mode: 0 days). 14 states have no minimum hold time prior to dissection with an additional 15 that permit dissection within 30 days of death.

Moderate correlation is found between number of reported unclaimed dead and number of medical schools r(49) = .619, p< .01 and AGP’s r(49) = .629, p< .01, with a very weak correlation between unclaimed and state poverty levels r(49) = .382, p< .01.

Strong correlation exists between poverty levels and number of both medical schools r(49) = .881, p< .01 and AGP’s r(49) = .776, p< .01.


Conclusions
Most states (39/50) permit medical schools’ direct access to the unclaimed dead for the purpose of dissection. 74% of these states permit dissection within 30 days.

While there is a weak correlation between the number of unclaimed dead and poverty levels, there is a strong correlation between poverty levels and the number of medical schools and AGP’s and a moderate correlation between the number of reported unclaimed dead persons and the number of medical schools and AGP’s.

Discussion
This study is limited by the fact that there is no required national reporting of numbers of unclaimed dead persons, or of cadavers used or their origins in medical schools in the US. Regardless, laws in most states permit swift access to the unclaimed for use in health care education.

Further research is warranted in counting the number of cadavers being used in anatomy education and how they are sourced.