Bodies of knowledge: U of A medical school thanks ‘remarkable’ donors and their families

Before she died at age 96, Doreen Edna Buhler lived a difficult but remarkable life.

After the death of her father, she left the farm in Calahoo, Alta., where she was born and built a new life in the city, working alongside her husband at his family’s diner in Edmonton. Widowed at 39, Buhler leaned on her faith and provided for her 13 children working as a baker, pastry chef and cook in kitchens across the city.

But death was not the end of Buhler’s story.

As part of her final wishes, she donated her remains to the University of Alberta’s Anatomical Gifts Program so the next generation of medical professionals could learn from the body that had carried her through life.

“She was incredible. She really was,” Brigid Burton said of her mother Saturday at a commemorative service for anatomical donors at the University of Alberta. “She had this entire other chapter.” 

‘A remarkable gift’

Every spring, students and faculty gather on campus to honour those who have bequeathed their bodies to the program.  On Saturday, hundreds of people crowded into a campus lecture hall for the annual memorial held by the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.  

Donor names were read aloud and a moment of silence marked before families were presented with fresh-cut yellow roses.

Dr. David Williams, chair of the surgery department, said donor families deserve thanks for honouring their loved ones’ wishes and contributing to the education of hundreds of U of A medical students each year.

“The human body is a profound teacher,” he said at Saturday’s service. “A remarkable gift.” 

Anatomical donations are used by students in a variety of health and research programs on campus, including medicine, dentistry, kinesiology, physical therapy and physical education.

The memorial provided a sense of closure for Burton and her brother Anthony Buhler.

Doreen Edna Buhler, who died on April 29, 2024, had long told her children of her intentions to donate, the siblings said in an interview with CBC News.

Her gift was a final chapter in a remarkable life, Anthony Buhler said. 

She met her husband Patrick while working at his family’s diner that once stood on Jasper Avenue and raised their children in an apartment upstairs.

While her husband served as line cook, Doreen was a skilled baker who became famous for her pies, made daily from scratch.

When Patrick died suddenly in 1967, she went on to work as the main cook at St. Vincent’s Convent, then in the kitchens of the Court of Queen’s Bench. 

Her mother was a resilient woman of faith and Burton said she views her time as a donor as an extension of the generosity and self-sacrifice that marked her life. 

With her time as a donor now complete, they plan to lay her ashes to rest next to her husband.

“It’s bringing that final closure. But in the meantime, there has been two years of this amazing legacy,” Burton said. 

The university’s Anatomical Gifts Program has been operating since the medical school began in 1921. It is among a handful of donor programs at universities across Canada and the United States. 

Program co-ordinator Jason Papirny said the university receives between 50 and 80 donations each year, while more than 10,000 people have registered their intent to donate. 

“There are some [donors] that worked at a university, there are nurses, educators, teachers. A lot of them look at this as another way to keep teaching even after they’re gone,” Papirny said.

“Talking to some of the donors, they’ve never gone to university. So this is one way they can go to university. Everybody looks at it a little bit differently.” 

Over one to two years, the donations provide students a chance to understand the anatomical relationships at play within the body as well as the progression and treatment of disease and illness. The bodies can also be used for research or for practicing rare procedures, Papirny said.

Donors can choose to have their remains returned to their families or cremated and scattered at a special plot maintained by the university at Westlawn Funeral Home Cemetery in Edmonton. 

‘Absolute courage’

Margaret Juryn, a second-year medical student, said training with real human bodies offers an education no textbook can replicate.

Every body is unique and bears the scars of a life lived — variations that can’t easily be conveyed on the page. 

Her own grandmother and grandfather donated their remains to science and her mother has made arrangements to do the same. 

Juryn spoke during Saturday’s memorial service to offer her thanks.

Entrusting your remains to an institution is a vulnerable choice that requires “absolute courage,” she said. 

“I deeply admire your loved ones who were brave enough to take this leap.”