My Cadaver, F.O.B.

The gift is an extraordinary one – a body for medical students to carve up and study. A friend of mine (who was a first-year medical student at the time) told me that they develop a close relationship with their cadavers. I suspect that may be true.

Both of my parents gave their bodies to science. I was charged a pick-up fee both times.

Within an hour of their deaths, the medical school was explaining to me that I needed to write a check to cover the cost of transporting the body from the hospital or hospice to the university.

The hospice nurse was appalled. He said he would write a letter. We joked that maybe they take credit cards. Turns out they do.

My mother told me shortly before she died that the school might charge something (something like $150) and that I should pay it from her estate. The charge was $350. I imagined that her last words might have been, “THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS?!”

Being somewhat less selfless than my parents, I’m not sure I want to give my body to science. But if I do, I’m going to insist that it be F.O.B. my death bed.

The university has a massive endowment, lots of benefactors, a well-trained development staff, students paying outrageous tuition, and it ought to be able to find someone willing to underwrite this marginal cost. That would seem so . . . um, diplomatic under the circumstances.

A medical school unwilling to pay $350 for a cadaver has some peculiar priorities.