WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) is a cooperative regional medical education program of the University of Washington School of Medicine that provides places for twenty Montana students per year in its entering medical student class. These twenty students take their first year of medical school at Montana State University and complete their studies at the University of Washington in Seattle and at community clinical training sites throughout the Northwest.

WWAMI Body Donation Program Consent Form

Medical education in this country requires more than 8,000 bodies yearly for training tomorrow's physicians and other health professionals. Bodies for medical study were acquired in past years by laboratories through default, so to speak. In most states bodies of indigents, otherwise unwanted and unclaimed by relatives, are allocated by law to medical institutions. However, this arrangement has two disadvantages. In the first place, today in America few people need be denied whatever disposition of their bodies they might want. Nearly everyone can afford conventional funeral procedures, and various social programs help the few who need financial assistance. Second, it is a sounder social policy to have persons decide for themselves to serve medical science by dedicating their bodies for use by medical education after death. To facilitate the procedure for body donation, all states have enacted uniform legislation clarifying the right of a person to bequeath his or her body after death for the promotion of medical science.  The Montana WWAMI Body Donation Program is designed at this time, because of legal and budgetary reasons, for Montana residents.  Donations from other states may be considered under unique circumstances only after prior consultation with the Program Administrator.

Your decision to consider leaving your body, or parts of your body, for use in medical teaching or research has probably been thought through very carefully and you have definite convictions in favor of so doing, based upon your own good reason and logic. At an appropriate time, you should discuss your decision frankly with your next of kin. It is important to have next of kin agree to the bequest. It is important that you recognize that your donation may not be accepted at the time of your death, thus you should also have alternative plans of which your next of kin are aware.

The bequest procedure for donating your body to medical education is relatively simple. Fill out a Declaration of Consent Form or Uniform Donor Card stating that your entire body shall go to a medical school or medical training program for use in medical education or research. Declaration of Consent Forms can be obtained by contacting the WWAMI Program at the address below or by printing the Consent Form that can be accessed at the bottom of this document. A Declaration of Consent Form is preferred over the use of a Will. You may keep one copy of the Declaration of Consent Form, give the second copy to your next of kin, attorney or physician, and forward the third copy to the WWAMI Medical Education Program, preferably, but not necessarily, accompanied by a brief medical history from your physician. The bequest should be signed in the presence of two witnesses who also sign the bequest. If you have no immediate next of kin available as a witness, the bequeathal is still legal. You may incorporate your bequest in your Will in addition to the consent form, but it is strongly recommended that the Will not be your only indication of these wishes since frequently there are delays associated with applying the Will.

At the time of death the survivors should contact a funeral director and notify him or her that the body is willed to our program. The survivors should ask the funeral director to call us (994-3151 or 994-6516) and we will provide him or her with specific instructions related to our needs. The funeral director picks up the body, provides basic preparation procedures required by our program, and holds the body until it can be transported to Montana State University. The WWAMI Medical Education Program pays the funeral home for the expenses directly involved in providing the relatively few arrangements that we require. (This usually includes initial transportation and embalming costs.) There may be other costs that the family will have to pay, depending on the individual funeral home, local circumstances, miscellaneous paperwork required, or the wishes of the family. Contact your local funeral home if you have questions in this regard and to determine what other charges, if any, might fall to the family. If the survivors wish funeral services (generally without the remains present) that can be arranged, but at the expense of the survivors or estate. If such services are preplanned, the funeral director is encouraged to contact the WWAMI Program relative to our needs. When the death of a donor occurs more than 225 miles from Bozeman, we have to ask the survivors or estate to help pay the cost of transportation to ensure a timely removal to Bozeman that is within our budget.

Most donated remains are utilized for anatomical study by first year medical students or students in other paramedical fields here at Montana State University. Other remains might be utilized by other medical or paramedical education programs in Montana or the cooperating states in the WWAMI Program (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska and Idaho). After use, generally one to five years after death, the remains are buried in shared plots in the Sunset Hills Cemetery here in Bozeman. The graves are marked with a simple stone on which names are not listed. If the donor or survivors wish the remains cremated or returned to a family plot, that can be arranged; however, this is at the expense of the survivors or estate. This is best arranged with a funeral director and paid for by a trust set up before death. If the remains are not to be buried here in Bozeman by our program, the next of kin must notify the WWAMI Program, in writing, within a month following the donor's death.

The WWAMI Medical Education Program has no capabilities in regard to organ donations. If an individual wishes to donate individual organs for transplantation at a large medical center and still donate their bodies to our program, they may do so. First priority is given to organ transplants and, except in the case of eye removals, WWAMI cannot use the rest of the body. However, if circumstances were not favorable for organ donation at death, we could use the complete body.

The WWAMI Program can refuse to accept any body donation, so individuals should have alternative plans. We can accept most bodies that died of most common illnesses, including most, but not all, cancers. Typical reasons for refusing a body are as follows: 1) death occurred out of state and would require excessive time and expense to return the body; 2) there were obvious objections to the bequeathal by the legal next of kin; 3) organs (other than eyes) were to be used in an actual transplantation operation; 4) death occurred in extremely traumatic or unusual situations that make the body unusable; 5) death occurred because of suicide, massive system-wide infections, or surgical complications; 6) there are unhealed wounds at the time of death, including surgical wounds; 7) an autopsy was performed; and 8) too much time elapsed between death and the initial body preparation by the local funeral director; and 9) the individual is exceptionally emaciated or obese.  Additionally, because so many Montanans have been so generous in signing declarations of consent, we may occasionally have to refuse donations simply because we have no immediate needs or because our storage facilities are full.

If a donor changes his or her mind, the Declaration of Consent may be revoked by letter, by an oral statement to the attending physician during a terminal illness, or by a written statement carried by the donor.

If you have any questions please contact:

WWAMI Body Donation Program Consent Form

Return to regular view	Text-only	Updated: 06/15/2007