AbstractBody donation’ is the donation of the whole body after death for medical research and education. Medical institutes use cadavers to teach anatomy by corpse dissection but cadavers are now a scarcity with mushrooming of medical institutions in our country and it is also not deniable that opening new medical institutes is must to balance the doctor-population ratio. Presently it is a daunting task to make students well-versed with the anatomy due to lack of cadavers and so the students are being taught by software, charts and models. Under Anatomy Act of India, the unclaimed bodies have limitations and mostly they are not useful; and the practice of burial or cremation of corpse is a trend in India. So the only source of cadavers is the donated bodies but there is paucity of awareness regarding the gracious and ideal act of body donation. Present work simply tried to assess the views, thoughts and awareness of the public of various field about the concept of body donation by a questionnaire; analysed and concluded with the ideas that (i) the books and computer cannot replicate the hands on method of teaching human anatomy and replace the human body dissection (ii) availability of cadavers is must for delivering excellence in teaching anatomy and conducting researches in the field of medical science (iii) ‘Body Donation Awareness’ by public campaigns, exhibitions etc. in large scale is the uttermost necessity for lacking cadavers and so the encouraging & motivating body donation by bringing ‘body donation awareness’ is the only solution for the scarcity of cadavers in Medical Education in India and (iv) in the spring of each year, the Institute should organize a memorial service to honor their donors from the previous year. Family members and friends of the donor should be invited.
Keywords: Body donation, Dissection, Anatomy Act, Campaign, Replicate