Mayra Sanchez remembers the experience vividly. She was a first-year medical student when she met her very first patient. She nervously walked into the examination room, picked up the scalpel, looked around at her fellow medical students, and carefully followed the instructions of her professor.

Sanchez, now a second-year resident at KU Medical Center, was always told a doctor’s first patient is their best teacher, but what she didn’t realize was that her first patient in medical school wouldn’t be alive.

Donated cadavers fill the much-needed first-patient role by providing a transition between the classroom and exam room. They allow students to discover what the human body really looks like before they start interacting with live patients.

This vital experience is made possible by the people who will their bodies to science after they die. Many first-year students feel a special connection to the people who made this learning experience possible when they donated their bodies to KU Medical Center.

Second-year students at KUMC hold a special willed body ceremony at the beginning of every school year to honor the donors and to let their families know how much they appreciate the sacrifice their loved ones made.

Most importantly, though, the service provides an opportunity for students to reflect on what they’ve learned from the patients, not only from a scientific standpoint, but emotionally as well.

“It’s important to realize that despite the family’s loss, this person didn’t stop giving to society,” Sanchez said. “They were still able to impact a group of people even after death.”

Identities of the cadavers are withheld from the students, but Sanchez said she feels she was able to still connect with them personally because they taught her to always respect her patients. “I learned that patients are more than illnesses waiting to be treated,” she said. “They are a part of someone’s family and loved by people. As physicians, we should never forget that.” +