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Utilizing medical students' attitudes toward whole body donation in developing a whole body donation program
Author(s) -
Dykowski Sara,
Ahmed Mohammed,
Tooley Trevor,
Helland Timothy,
Barremkala Malli
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.733.2
Subject(s) - donation , medical education , likert scale , test (biology) , demographics , family medicine , medicine , psychology , medical school , organ donation , surgery , transplantation , demography , paleontology , developmental psychology , sociology , biology , economics , economic growth
The Biomedical Sciences department at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine (OUWB) aspires to start a body donation program in association with Oakland University. Understanding OUWB medical students' attitudes towards a whole body donation program and its advertisement will help better direct the department in designing a donation program that can be successful and align with students' values. A secondary goal of this study is to gauge medical student awareness of the body donation process to determine if an educational intervention should be introduced in the future. METHODS An online survey was sent to first‐year OUWB students to be completed prior to their first gross anatomy lab in August 2016 to determine students' attitudes prior to dissection exposure. The survey included questions regarding demographics, past anatomical education, and Likert scale questions involving perceptions of body donation. The same group of students was surveyed again 8 weeks (halfway mark) into the semester to assess for any changes in their attitudes. Data will be collected through December 2016 and a paired t‐test will be used to analyze the collected results. RESULTS Of the 126 students eligible to participate, 69 students responded to the survey prior to the first dissection; 42 students (62.7%) identified themselves as female and the average age of students was 23.5±2.08. Only 10 students (14.1%) felt that body donation programs should not advertise publicly while 21 students (30.4%) were neutral and 38 students (55.1%) either somewhat or strongly agreed with advertising publicly. Students felt most comfortable receiving information about whole body donation via pamphlet (65 students, 94.2%); social media (30 students, 43.48%), billboard (11 students, 15.94%) and radio (11 students, 15.94%) advertisements followed. 61 students (89.7%) did not know how to register for whole body donation, and 63 students (91.3%) were neutral or in favor of learning more about the donation process. These results will be compared with the post‐dissection responses in December 2016. CONCLUSION Preliminary results indicate that students are in support of developing a whole body donation program that utilizes various methods of public advertisement. Student awareness of the whole body donation registration process is lacking and the majority of students expressed interest in learning more about the process, thus supporting the need for an educational intervention in the future. Analysis of the pre‐ and post‐dissection surveys in December 2016 will determine if dissection experience influences students' attitudes towards whole body donation.