Feature: Medical students learn life lesson from cadaver donors

The classroom at the end of a corridor in a north China medical school houses 33 wills and three specimens jars holding human organs.

The wills were written by 33 donors who donated their organs for transplants or their bodies for autopsy.

"Do not try to save me when my condition becomes critical," reads one of the wills. "I'm willing to donate my corneas and all my organs to whoever needs them; I hope my body will be used for autopsy, and if possible, please sprinkle my ashes into the sea because I used to serve in the Navy."

Many of the 40 sophomores and juniors from Nankai University's Medical School were driven to tears when they visited the exhibition room Tuesday for a class.

The lesson for the future doctors was on professional ethics and the meaning of life, said associate professor Zhang Jinzhong who led the session.

Each of the 33 donors said they wanted their bodies to help medical research.

Some of them were medical workers themselves.

Zhu Xianyi, an expert on endocrinology who died in 1984, donated his body, all his savings, house and books to science.

Wang Guiying, a retired nurse who won the Nightingale Awards for Nursing Excellence in 1999, signed her name on the cadaver donation form a few days before she died in 2012.

Two of the donors were former employees of Nankai University, including a librarian and a worker with the school-run chemical plant.

"They had different lives and different understandings of medicine," Zhang told his students. "But they were all trying to do something to assist medical research. They are our silent teachers."

One has to be kind and sympathetic to be a doctor, Zhang said. "The aim of this class is to show the students some of the qualities a doctor must possess, and incorporate humanism in science studies."

Junior student Shen Yeting had tears in her eyes as she read the wills, "They are heroes in my eyes. I admire their attitudes of life and death."

The traditional belief that one's body must remain complete after death has long hampered organ and body donations in China. Many Chinese medical students complain that they have little or no experience working on cadavers in university due to a lack of donated bodies.

The Red Cross Society of China said 39,301 people applied to donate organs or cadavers in China from 2000 to 2015, of which 4,734 donations were implemented.

In Beijing, 235 bodies were donated to three medical universities last year. Bringing the total number to 2,097 since official data became available in 1999.

Sophomore student Cao Kejie said he was impressed with the will of a construction worker, who decided to donate his body after he learned the importance of such donations from his doctor. "Good doctors do not just heal people, they also inspire people."

Cao, a native of north China's Shanxi Province, is studying to be a dentist. His dream to study medicine was inspired by his mother, who spent many years taking care of his bedridden grandmother and never complained.

"I plan to go back to my hometown and provide better dental care for people in small cities and tiny towns," Cao said. "This pleases my mother."

Zhang said most medical schools in China stress skill learning but neglect personality shaping for future doctors. "We are training doctors who will need to cure, heal and communicate with patients and their families, not bookworms who only know the theories and formulas."

He said professional ethics and humanism are important skills that medical students must have to become competent and enthusiastic doctors with a strong senses of social responsibility. Such qualities are particularly important, he said, given the heavy workload at most Chinese hospitals and conflict between medical workers and patients' families.

Hospitals are often overwhelmed with patients. Doctors have to work under great pressure but their pay does not reflect this, which, unfortunately, has led to bribery and prescription of unnecessary drugs and treatment.

"Though the road ahead is bumpy, I'm ready to devote myself to my medical career," a student wrote in the exhibition room guestbook. Endi