Family members of donors invited to service of thanksgiving and remembrance scheduled for Jan. 14

The Indiana University School of Medicine – Northwest (IUSM-NW) will host a memorial service on Friday, Jan. 14 in honor and recognition of the six anatomical donors who selflessly gifted their bodies to scientific learning. The service will begin at noon at the medical school located on the Indiana University Northwest campus in Gary, Ind.

The ceremony will remember and give thanks to Russell Borrelli, Estle Loomis, Jean Polick, Sally Snyder, Beulah Welty, Elmer Cline, and our child and fetal donors.

In a practice that is unique to IUSM-NW, family members of the donors have had contact with the students who have been dissecting their loved ones throughout the formal human gross anatomy course, and now, these family members have been invited to the memorial service so that they may also celebrate the lives and generosity of their loved ones.

The service, coordinated by IUSM-NW’s first-year medical students, will provide student doctors, faculty and staff the opportunity to express their thanks for the gifts of the donors. In written passages, songs and prayers, the students will reflect on the privilege that has been afforded to them by the donor who endowed his or her body to medical education and research.

WHEN:

Friday, Jan. 14, 2011

12 p.m. – Memorial Service

1 p.m. – Luncheon

2:30 p.m. – Slide Show and Rose Ceremony

WHERE:

Indiana University Northwest/IU School of Medicine – Northwest

Dunes Medical/Professional Building

3400 Broadway

Gary, IN 46408

(Dunes Medical/Professional Building is located at the intersection of Jefferson St. and 35^th Ave.)

Interview AND PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES:

There will be several interview and photo opportunities available with a donor’s family, medical students and with IUSM-NW faculty.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
The medical students will present a painted memorial in honor of the donors and a candle plaque in recognition of the fetuses and the anonymous five-year-old donor. Both tributes will be displayed within the IUSM-NW.

The formal service will be facilitated by Rev. Frederick Niedner, Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University, and by Ernest Talarico, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Medical Education and course Director for human gross anatomy and embryology at IUSM-NW.