Dozens of campus community members attended an evening ceremony Sept. 29 to recognize individuals who have donated their bodies to support medical research and education at the UC Davis School of Medicine.

The ceremony took place outside Medical Sciences Building 1C in the health sciences district.

Every year, UC Davis medical students conduct a memorial service to honor those who have donated their bodies to science and medicine. The ceremony provides second-year students with an opportunity to pay respects to the bodies from which they learned, and prepares first-year students for the lessons they are about to learn. But this marked the first time that community members and family members of body donors were invited, at the suggestion of the School of Medicine's class of 2007. The ceremony included a candle-lighting, a moment of silence, and the planting of a tree in memory of those who have donated their bodies to medicine. Speakers included Michael Wilkes, vice dean of medical education; Rev. Ernie Lewis, past associate dean of medical student affairs; Richard Tucker, professor of human anatomy; and Brandi Schmitt, curator of the Donated Body Program.

Medical students work with human cadavers in the first quarter of their first-year training at the School of Medicine in the gross anatomy course. Cadavers also are used in research laboratories to better understand disease and by emergency medicine and other specialty physicians and residents, who practice new surgical techniques.

The Donated Body Program at the UC Davis School of Medicine was established in 1968. The program has received more than 2,400 donations to date and has 4,500 living individuals registered as donors.