Beyond the gift: donor motivations and family experiences as drivers of body donation programs
Valérie Defaweux, Olivier Prygiel, Louis Schieres, David Mutombo Mwembo, Anne-Marie Etienne, Allyson Fries, Alain Botte, Caterina Marchese, Murielle Wouters, Pierre Bonnet, Marc Radermecker, Aude Lagier · 2026
Read Beyond the gift: donor motivations and family experiences as drivers of body donation programs by Valérie Defaweux, Olivier Prygiel, Louis Schieres, David Mutombo Mwembo, Anne-Marie Etienne, Allyson Fries, Alain Botte, Caterina Marchese, Murielle Wouters, Pierre Bonnet, Marc Radermecker, Aude Lagier (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12813040.txt.
Description
Valérie Defaweux and eleven co-authors study what drives body donation to science at a Belgian university, in a paper listed as 2025. Donated bodies are vital for medical training, yet shortages persist. Donor motives and family feelings together decide whether programs endure.
They surveyed 104 registered donors and ten donor families with mixed methods. Usefulness for science was the top motive, ahead of symbolic meaning, altruism, and gratitude. Nearly all donors had told relatives, whose reactions varied by job type. Families were broadly satisfied but described a double grief, at death and at return of remains. Word of mouth was the main information channel.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Valérie Defaweux, Olivier Prygiel, Louis Schieres, David Mutombo Mwembo, Anne-Marie Etienne, Allyson Fries, Alain Botte, Caterina Marchese, Murielle Wouters, Pierre Bonnet, Marc Radermecker, Aude Lagier |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 52 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |