AURORA — There was more laughter than tears during a memorial service Friday honoring people who donated their bodies to medical education.
Students who spent months dissecting muscle and bone mingled with the family members of body donors in a grassy spot at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus.
In the crowd of more than 200, students shared gratitude and families told stories — mostly funny stories.
Wayne Banks was a Methodist minister who loved teaching sex education, said his wife, Susie Banks of Boulder.
“Those students of his would all say, ‘Well, I’ve gotta have Sex with Wayne,’ ” Banks said, laughing.
Linda Mueller of Englewood said her mother, Marty Searcy, knocked on her door one night, said she’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told her daughter “You have five minutes to grieve.”
Mueller said that at 79, her mother relished the idea of a student learning something from her old body.
“She told me ‘Can you just imagine — here I’ll be laying on a slab and look what they’re going to learn,’ ” Mueller said. ” ‘They’re going to find two replacement knees and no gallbladder. They’re going to find heart disease, cancer.’ ”
David Erickson, a first-year physician assistant student at UC Denver, said that although he was grateful for what his donor taught him about anatomy, he craved more.
“Who was she? What did she love? Did she dance?” he asked, imploring family members to share stories.
Virginia Smith, a Greeley resident who died last year at 75, loved horses, collected medical books and won a roller-skating competition in her youth, said her friend Pam Thurow.
“She also loved Led Zeppelin,” laughed Thurow, who drove down from Greeley with another friend, Genie Meyer, for the memorial service.
It wasn’t clear whether any students managed to find family members of the particular cadaver they worked on — that’s a rarity, said UC Denver professor Mike Carry.
Rather, the annual ritual serves as a more general occasion for students to give thanks for what they have learned in anatomy, and for families to get some closure, understanding the value of their loved one’s decision to donate.
“She was a small woman,” said first-year medical student Matt Johnson, 23, of his donor. “She had her fingernails painted and lipstick. She definitely wanted to look pretty to the end.
“Her heart was in really good shape, and we imagined that she didn’t go to her death passively,” Johnson said.
Johnson and his dissection team learned that their donor had died of pneumonia, and that she had been a teacher.
“I loved that,” he said. “Because she was my teacher.”
Katy Human: 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com
