After the patient's death, the relevant medical school should be contacted as soon as possible so the body can be preserved without delay. Depending on how the body is kept after death, it must be received by the medical school within three to five days to allow for suitable preservation.

Not all bodies can be accepted for donation even if appropriate consent is in place. Decisions on acceptance cannot always be made until the time of death, as certain medical conditions or circumstances of death may preclude it. For example, infectious diseases or recent surgery might prevent donation, as would the requirement by the coroner for a post-mortem to be performed. The medical school might contact the doctor signing the death certificate or the GP to check that the body is suitable for anatomical examination.

MDU advice

With the help of the MDU adviser the GP framed a conciliatory and empathetic response to the complaint, explaining that the practice had not been made aware of the patient's bequest before death, and that there had been a delay of several days before receiving the request from the medical school.

The practice also explained that completing the necessary paperwork would have required a detailed review of the patient's records and a discussion with the treating clinicians at the hospital to ascertain events leading up to the patient's death. The practice acknowledged that in the future it could add an alert to the records of a patient who wanted to make a similar bequest, to highlight the need to contact the medical school after their death.

This advice line dilemma appears in the 2019 edition of Cautionary Tales.

Complaint from the family of a deceased patient

Complaint from the family of a deceased patient