After life: Would you consider donating your body to science?

UCC receives between 20 and 30 bodies a year and is one of five medical schools that take anatomical donations, writes Helen O’Callaghan

Professor John Cryan and the Anatomy Staff, School of Medicine, University College Cork. Picture: Clare Keogh

WHEN Doireann Ní Ghríofa was 17 and a first-year dentistry student in University College Cork (UCC), she arrived at the anatomy department one morning to find a dead elderly woman lying on the table before her.

“Initially, like a lot of young people, I thought how strange. It took a while to work through that. But right from the start, I felt moved by the sense of gift. This person had given their body for the sake of me learning from them.