Missive from parts of Africa

A light hearted and sometimes serious look at moving 6000km into a place in Africa: April 2007. Promoted back to South Africa, the missive will continue to track my foray's into deepest Africa as and when I get there.

Name:
Location: Joburg, Africa, South Africa

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Medical Schools have strange ideas

When you make a decision to donate your body to medical science, it is really a decision that should be communicated to the family that is left behind.

When you are a medical school and the family of a deceased who disagree with the deceased decision to donate his body want the body back, I would honestly believe you respect the family’s wishes and allow them to bury the body.

What you do not do – in my humble opinion – is take the widow to court demanding that she hand over the body to the medical school.

There is just something wrong about that case.

But: It has happened and made the back page of the Daily Graphic.

1 Comments:

Blogger Third World Ant said...

Hmmm... I was enraged by the exact opposite situation the other day... one of my doctor friends who is currently doing his community service year, got a needle prick from what may/may not have been an HIV positive baby. His mother would not allow the baby to be tested (her right), so my friend has to take a 5-week course of antiretrovirals. Surely in this case the patient should be forced to be tested, to save another human being the pain of taking unnecessary drugs just to be safe?

1:47 PM  

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