Donating one's remains to a medical school is one option. (Organ donation is not feasible if body donation is decided upon.) While such donations are important, I wish to encourage a cautionary approach to planning such a donation.

If you're inclined toward the body donation option, find out all that you can about the program at the medical school under consideration. Try to speak with the person having direct control over the body donor program. Ask all the questions you can think of, and see whether you get answers that are complete and not evasive.

Be certain to ask about the cost of transportation of the body, and how and when the cost is to be paid. Ask what happens if death occurs in one state or country when residency was in another (getting two coroner's or medical examiner's reports can complicate matters). Ask about any reasons that the instituion might use in rejecting a donation after the donor's death.

I won't try to describe in this post the hideous ordeal that family members can be subjected to in trying to press through the wishes of a deceased loved one. And our experience was with a prestigious medical school in the southeastern USA. Take nothing for granted based on an institution's reputation. I'm not saying that you should not donate, only that you should proceed carefully.

The spouse of the donating loved one has decided not to donate to the same institution, as had been planned. She and I will now most likely ask for cremation after organ donation, with prepaid arrangements, and thereafter strewing of remains in a nearby forest.