When Michelle Moore’s mom, Betty, was diagnosed with ALS at age 64, the progress of the disease was swift and devastating. By the time she moved in with her daughter in New Orleans in 2018 — about 9 months into her diagnosis — she was in a power wheelchair and communicated through text messaging.
Faced with the inevitable progression of an illness that had stolen her independence, Moore said she and her mother focused on what they could control.
“We couldn’t change what was coming,” Moore said. “So how do we make the most of the time we have, and not let life go to waste?”
For her mother, that answer came in the form of body donation. A hospice worker mentioned it to her as an option, and she latched on to the idea as a way she could stick around for a little bit longer, serving a purpose.
“This disease takes so much away from you,” Moore said. “But if someone else can learn something because of her life — literally her body — then that would be wonderful to contribute to.”
After being diagnosed with ALS at 64, Betty McCloud Bacon decided to donate her body to science through Louisiana State University.
In Louisiana, programs at LSU and Tulane accept whole-body donations to train future doctors, scientists, dentists and other medical professionals. Unlike organ donation, which typically benefits a single recipient, body donation serves a broader educational mission, training medical professionals with hands-on experience.
LSU Health Sciences Center
The first patient
In a morgue on Perdido Street in New Orleans, bodies stored in freezers at LSU Health Sciences Center have a big job ahead of them: They will be the first patient of new medical students, the silent teachers guiding them through the fundamentals of human anatomy and clinical care.
Each year, LSU Health New Orleans receives about 250 donated bodies that are used for gross-anatomy labs for first-year medical students, surgical training for residents practicing procedures like knee replacements or spinal fusions, ultrasound-guided needle insertion training, and hands-on workshops for emergency medicine and trauma care simulations. The impact of a single donation is far-reaching, said Jay Mussell, a professor in the department of cell biology and anatomy.
“One individual may provide training for 100 different people,” Mussell said.
That reach, Mussell said, comes with a great responsibility.
“Truly, no one will ever be more intimate with a person’s body than those of us doing gross anatomy courses,” said Mussell. “And I don’t take that lightly.”
LSU students hold a memorial for body donors after the completion of their course. The ceremonies are meant to honor the individuals who made the donation and acknowledge the profound educational gift they gave.
“The day of memorialization is really not about (the students) at all,” he said. “It’s about understanding how you stand on the shoulders of giants and how you have to acknowledge the individuals that enabled you to have that personal growth.”
Not all body donation programs have maintained that standard.
High-profile scandals at other institutions — including one involving a Louisiana man whose remains were dissected before a paying audience at a for-profit event — have raised questions about how donated bodies are used and whether families can trust what happens after death. LSU has had some donors question the process following such incidents at other institutions, officials said.
Louisiana is a first-person consent state, meaning individuals must register themselves to donate; next-of-kin donations are rare and heavily vetted. LSU also returns cremated remains to families, which is not guaranteed by every program.
How does it work?
Each donor’s use is determined based on their condition. That determines if they will be embalmed and used long-term for dissection or frozen and used in advanced clinical training for residents or faculty performing procedures that require a realistic tissue feel, such as pelvic floor reconstruction.
If a donor body wasn’t found until a day or two after death, the program may not be able to use it. Certain infectious diseases, such as MRSA, some types of hepatitis and HIV also preclude donation, said Tara Rodrigue, program administrator of the Bureau of Anatomical Services at LSU School of Medicine. A high body mass index that exceeds storage tank limits can also disqualify a donor.
What happens after death depends on the circumstances. If a donor dies at home, the coroner is sometimes involved; any case requiring an autopsy or involving trauma, such as a gunshot wound or car accident, typically disqualifies the body.
If the death occurs under hospice or in a hospital, a medical professional contacts LSU to begin screening. Rodrigue’s team reviews the donor’s medical history to determine eligibility. Once accepted, LSU’s contracted funeral home retrieves the body and brings it to the morgue, where staff assess its condition and decide whether to embalm it for longer-term use or freeze it for shorter-term clinical training.
Rodrigue's own mother signed up to be a body donor in 1981. She used to joke that students would “have a lot of fun with her” because of all her ailments.
“She loved the idea of being able to come here and have students work on her as their first patient,” Rodrigue said.
Families can expect to receive the cremated remains around three years after death.
There is no cost to donating, unless the donor is more than 200 miles outside of LSU, in which case the family would need to cover transportation costs. For some, potential savings in cremation costs may be a draw, though the university takes care to prevent financial incentive from becoming a motivation for donation.
While they are meeting current needs, additional donors would allow LSU to expand educational opportunities, such as allowing fewer students per cadaver or providing more specimen availability for advanced training, Rodrigue said.
'Your second job is done'
Near the end of her life, Rodrigue’s mother developed Alzheimer’s. She wasn’t able to have meaningful conversations with her. But body donation was something her mom had talked about for decades. Seeing it through gave Rodrigue peace.
“I grew up knowing that she always wanted to be a donor, and so that’s the one thing that I feel that I was able to do, was make that happen,” Rodrigue said.
Similarly, Michelle Moore felt body donation was part of her mom’s legacy. Betty was someone who always wanted to keep busy, who worked as long as she could through her ALS diagnosis, and whose friends and family knew her to be humble and always looking to be helpful to others.
Two years after LSU’s contracted funeral home came to get her mom after she passed away, Moore received a call that her mom was “ready for pickup.”
She went alone to retrieve the ashes, which were placed in a box inside a bag. She placed the box in the front passenger seat of her car, talking to her mom and chuckling to herself over the reunion.
It was, she said, a moment of a sense of completion for both of them — “like your second job is done.”
