I wanted to take a moment to say a sincere thank you for sharing your loved one with us. I know it

sounds odd today, but I felt like I really connected with the body our group shared-- I loved learning

about his past history through things we could see in the present, like pacemakers and knee

replacements. I learned so much through working with the donated bodies, and I am so grateful that

your loved ones were generous enough to donate so my classmates and I could all learn so much.

Dear families and friends of the donors, While leaving our world, your loved ones have given us medical

students the greatest gift anyone can ever give: the opportunity to learn from their bodies. Our body is

our most valuable possession. Throughout life, we take great care of our body. Material possessions

may come and go, but no one can take our body from us. For us medical students, having the

opportunity to glimpse inside a human body is a very humbling experience. We have the once-in-a-

that because of his ultimate gift, I will be able to help countless patients in the future. I would convey to

him that he is my ultimate medical teacher, the one who can teach me more than any professor or

textbook can teach me. I consider it my great fortune to have received such a gift. And I wholeheartedly

thank the donor, who even at the last moments of his life, did not think about himself, but thought

about what more he can do to the world as he departs. Even after his passing, he continued to enrich

the lives of others. I will never forget the knowledge that I have gained from my donor. The human body

is the most amazing creation in the universe, and to be able to study it is a great honor. To the families

and friends of the donors, I am truly sorry for your loss. You were very fortunate to have had such

amazing people in your lives. And while the donors have departed our material world, they will continue

to live in our hearts, and they will always be in our thoughts and prayers. Thank you for considering us

experience- educationally and personally. Thank you

I would like to take a moment to thank the family members and loved ones of the donors for their

gracious donations for our anatomy instructional lab. To us, these donors represented more than just a

vessel to explore the human anatomy in great detail, it was, for many of us, one of the first patients we

will see and perhaps one of the most memorable as well. In these weeks, we learned about the

intricacies of the human body as well as how complex and unique every person is. Thank you for your

invaluable gifts and know that these donors have played an important role in developing intuitive,

sympathetic, and humane future physicians.

Dear Donor Family, My grandmother recently passed away and she had always been very adamant

about wanting to donate her body to science. She was a teacher in life and an incredibly sweet,

the rest of my lab group. We are deeply grateful. Sincerely, Matt S. Smith

Anatomy lab was one of the most important experiences of my life and I will be forever thankful for her

gift.

We are truly grateful for the generosity of your family and your loved one. Being able to learn in the

anatomy lab was a unique and certainly invaluable experience and would not have been possible

without your anatomic gift. Thank you!

I cannot begin to express my thanks and appreciation for the generous gift your loved one provided our

medical school class. I will never forget the opportunity we were given to learn human anatomy and am

certain I will continue to use the knowledge I have gained throughout my career. Please know how

grateful I am and that the memory of your loved one will be carried on by me as well.

medical education. While enlightening for us as students, this is truly a gift to society as our training will

impact the patients that we endeavor to care for. Additionally, I would like the families to know that all

of the remains were respected and the donors were honored. I could not be more grateful for all of

those who have allowed us to explore the marvels of the human body. They deserve to be very proud of

this gift.

I would like to thank the donor and their family for the chance to learn from the donor's body.

I would like to thank the donor as well as his family and friends. I learned a tremendous amount of

information from our donor and I am inspired and indebted to him. I will never forget the experience of

anatomy lab, and I have our donor to thank for that. His donation was incredibly noble.

The precious gift that you have bestowed has undoubtedly provided students with an understanding

and appreciation of the human body. With this knowledge, we hope to treat and improve the quality of

It is with my utmost appreciation that your family member has so generously donated her body. Her gift

is so valuable and has been such a vital component in my medical school education. As I continue my

medical school education and grow in my career, I will forever remember, cherish and appreciate the

learning experience and knowledge I have gained as result, that your family member has afforded me.

have touched our lives in both life and death. And although they may not be with us today, the

impressions they have left behind will stay with us forever and will in turn impact others through those

Dear friends and family, I just wanted to write and let you know how appreciative I was of what you all

have donated towards the pursuit of education. He was an exceptional donor, who clearly lived a very

To the family and friends of the anatomic donor - My name is Andrew Hanna and I would like to

personally convey my utmost and sincere gratitude for allowing my lab partners and I the ability to

further our medical education through your anatomic gift. The donor will always be remembered as my

first patient and I would like you to know that all my future work as a doctor would not have been fully

realized without her gift. Not only was this a gift to me as a medical student, but more importantly, a gift

to those who I will be serving as a physician in the future. It may not seem like much, but it has changed

my life and will change the lives of countless individuals who I hope to help as a doctor. And so on behalf

of those individuals as well as myself, I would simply like to say thank you for your gift. The world is a

better place because of it. Sincerely Andrew Hanna

I just want to express my gratitude for the sacrifice and contribution that your loved one made toward

Thank you for your support. Your contribution to our education has been invaluable. Our instructors

pointed out at the beginning that this anatomic gift is our first patient, to be treated with dignity and

respect. It a very touching lesson, one that I will never forget. Thank you.

We all really appreciate the generous contributions of all of the families to helping us further our

of knowledge and to serve as our primary teacher for our anatomy lab course. A group of 5 students

came together to learn from this individual and we had a truly wonderful experience during these past

few months learning from your loved one, and from each other. Our instructors told us in the beginning

of the course that the anatomical donor is our first patient, and I am truly grateful that I had the

Thank you for your generosity and selflessness in the anatomic gift you made for our medical school

class. Anatomy is one of the most important classes in our medical school journey and we know that we

would not have learned so much without the gift that you provided us. Our lab group really appreciates

what you have done for us and our medical training. Thank you again.

Thank you so much for your generous donation! The gift that you have given us is irreplaceable in our

education and will plays and integral role in allowing us to eventually help many people in the future. I

hope that she rests in peace knowing that she left behind such an important gift to us. Thank you again!

When I first walked into anatomy lab, it was incredibly overwhelming. It was a whole new barrage of

sights, smells, and emotions. It honestly made me feel uncomfortable knowing that these were once

in its Thai origins means "great teacher". Even though I did not understand this at the time, as the

semester continued that is exactly what my donor was, a teacher. Without the donation of this person

to science, I would not have the same understanding of the marvelous human body that I now have. I

she never met, and I truly appreciate this gift.

I would like to thank the donor to my anatomy group for their gift. This experience was one of the most

enlightening and certainly the greatest learning experience of my life. I truly appreciate the gift that was

I would like to express my extreme and sincere gratitude to the family of the woman who donated her

body to our medical education. Having the opportunity to learn from an actual human body was an

uncomparable learning experience that enhanced my understanding of anatomy exponentially. I

experience has undoubtedly impacted the physician that I will become, and I just want you to know how

appreciated your family's gift was to us as medical students.

body is something I couldn't admire more and be more humbled by. From her body, I learned more

about the immense moral duties of medicine that drew me to medical school. Through her body, I

began my long-held quest to become a healer. Through understanding her body, I will better understand

my future patients, and that inspired me every day to do unto her as I would do unto my patients.

Because of her, I feel more confident in my abilities to treat and respect those I will care for. But at the

same time, I faced through our time together the moral flaws that threaten medicine today. On our first

day, my classmates and I were told to treat our donors with care and respect, and then given lengthy lab

instructions that demanded we work quickly. After a lengthy and solemn moment of silence for the

donors, our group detached ourselves to the task at hand, and we forced ourselves to dissect multitudes

life, but with another's life hanging in the balance and not mine. But because of her, I remain as hopeful

and inspired as I was when I first walked into that lab. I know now, how strong my moral fiber really is. I

can. I am, because of her selfless donation, a stronger and wiser student, which will make me a stronger

and wiser and more competent physician in a few years. Such difficult and inspiring lessons I couldn't

have learned from anybody except her, and I couldn't be more grateful for her being the most giving and

supportive teacher I will ever have. Sincerely, A

Dear family, Thank you so much for the gift of your loved one. Please understand how important this

has been for my education and for the other four members of my anatomy group. We appreciate and

value this tremendous gift. I know that I will be a better physician and have a much better

one we took lightly. The last ten weeks have been an invaluable opportunity, one that will inform our

careers in medicine and that we will absolutely never forget. Thank you for your part in that.

everything I now know about the human body, and I will have the opportunity to really help people in

the future with the knowledge that I gained from him. If it wasn't for his singular final gift, my

I greatly appreciated the opportunity to begin my medical education with your friend or family member.

Even in death, she was a teacher and a source of camaraderie. She honorably gave her body to science,

my service.

I wanted to express my deepest thanks. You and your loved one made a priceless gift to science. I will

use the knowledge I have gained for the entirety of my medical career.

friends. Whoever our donor was to the person reading this (your father, husband, neighbor, or friend) I

can only hope that he was as generous in life as he was in death. Thank you.

individuals who elected to donate their bodies in support of our medical education. Through their

donations, these individuals made an immeasurable and truly irreplaceable contribution to our learning.

family for this generous donation. The dissection was an integral part of my anatomy learning

experience and helped me apply what I learned in the classroom to a more real situation. I am certain

that your generosity will help me become the physician that I want to be. I would also like to add that

the anatomy lab instructors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and my fellow classmates

have ensured that we have treated our donors with the utmost care and respect. Again, I sincerely

appreciate your generosity. Thank you very much! Sincerely, Sai Sachin Divakaruni MS I

I would like to thank our donors and their family and friends for the most generous gift one could ever

receive. Our gift was our first patient, our teacher, and a friend whom we never had a chance to grab a

coffee with. He was a member of our team in our pursuit to learn about the human body. He taught us

about the beauty of the human body that can not be simply demonstrated in our books. The knowledge

and experiences that we have gained in the past 10 weeks will remain with us during the rest of our

journey. He will be missed.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the donor, and his family and friends. Their anatomic gift

made a vast difference in learning and will almost certainly save lives in the future. Again, thank you so

to learn and experience things in a way that will stick with me throughout my medical career and that I

would not have otherwise been able to truly understand. I appreciate your gift for the opportunity to

learn about the human body in a real and tangible way, and I know the lessons I have been taught will

help me to provide better care for my future patients. Thank you again for your generosity, it was the

I'm having a difficult time finding the correct words to express the gratitude I feel. Your loved one gave

us this quiet and invaluable gift that marks the start of our medical careers. But how can we repay this

generosity? How can we thank the deceased for this most selfless donation? I hope that in expressing

my gratitude to you, you may find some peace in the death of your loved one. And I hope that in helping

you find that peace, I will have expressed the smallest of "thank you"s to a person who deserves so

Hello, My name is Michael Foster and I would like to express my thanks and gratitude towards your

family member who generously donated their body to medicine. Because of their selfless donation, over

the past ten weeks I have gained an immense amount of knowledge that will not only benefit myself as

a future practitioner, but will allow me to provide better care for my future patients. Ultimately, your

family member's benevolent decision to contribute their body to medical studies will allow many

individuals to receive quality care in the future that will restore their health, and in some cases, save

their lives.

people. Their selfless contribution will not only help students become well trained physicians, but may

also help advance the field of science and medicine. We are so grateful for their gift.

I would like to extend my thanks to your family for the gift that you have given. Your loved one’s

donation has allowed us to have an unparalleled experience. He gave himself, his body, so that we could

learn. He was selfless, courageous and caring. My experience has taught me to always remember that as

a physician one is treating the whole person, not just a disease. I will remember him and all that he has

taught me throughout my medical education. Thank you for everything! Sincerely, Laura Segars

I wish to express my most sincere gratitude to the family of our donor. I must be honest, I did not know

what to expect from my time in lab, but I would not have learned a single thing if it weren't for him. He

was a great teacher and I know that his donation and dedication to academic medicine will have a direct

impact on my career as a physician. I could not have made it through anatomy without him.

clearly went through life striving to serve and benefit others. His presence not only contributed

incredibly to my learning, but also spring boarded great new friendships within my lab group and

educational, rewarding, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Indeed, it was an absolutely invaluable gift to me,

my group members, and the medical profession as a whole, and for that, I am immensely grateful.

Thank you so much for your generous donation of a loved one. Because of his/her contribution, it has

enriched my medical education and allowed me to get a better grasp of human anatomy which will in

turn allow me to become the best physician I can possibly be.

I would like to thank you for this wonderful gift of learning which was bestowed upon my group. The

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to learn about the human body in

anatomy lab. My medical training would not be the same without this experience, made possible by

your invaluable anatomic gift to our school and us students. Thank you.

Thank you so much for donating your loved one to the anatomy lab. I express my deepest sympathies

for your loss. Please know that we will use everything that we learned to hopefully save lives and help

learn from anatomy lab. It was a honor to be able to synthesize what I learned in lecture and what I saw

in a textbook to an actual human example. I want to thank you and your family for giving me this gift for

my education. It has been one of my most memorable experiences, and I wish I could have known her

during her lifetime. Thank you again.

Thank you for this great gift that your loved one has given. It has provided an invaluable learning

experience which will benefit many people down the line. Though I may not know all the ways she

enriched your lives, she will never be forgotten for her role in mine.

opportunity to make a difference on the people around them. By becoming a donor, my donor was able

from my donor than from all of the lectures we had. She gave me the only opportunity I will ever have to

fully learn about the human body, and this will in turn allow me to serve all of my future patients so

much better, and to be able to save lives as a doctor. I am eternally grateful to my donor and her family

and friends for giving me this gift. In doing so, she has given so much to influence not only my life for the

learned from my donor.

science and to medicine. My classmates and I will forever remember and be thankful for this donation,

which has launched our medical careers and has given us the opportunity to become better physicians.

Dear Family, Even though I will probably never meet you, I feel as though I am writing to family. Over

the past few months we have gotten to know your loved one so well. While we did not have the

pleasure of knowing him in life, he has shown us what a fulfilling life that he lived. You are no doubt a

big part of that. Throughout our time together we learned about each other. He saw us everyday and

heard about our lives. All of our heartbreak, frustrations, and joy. And everyday he taught us something