León, Gto., June 15, 2017.- Wendy Lewis (UK) and Penélope Lu Singer (US), are two resident women in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato; who decided, alive, to donate their bodies to the University of Guanajuato (UG), to be used with academic and research purposes.

That is what Dr. Gerardo Chávez Saavedra informed, professor-researcher of the Department of Medicine and Nutrition of Campus León of UG, main promoter of this donation campaign.

In an interview, Dr. Chávez referred that "the most recent the donation is after death the better it is for the university, because we can preserve the body with similar characteristics it had with life."

Likewise, he informed that the bodies have two to three weeks of preservation after being donated, and possess two years of useful-life for educational purposes; after that, they use several preservation processes like plastination or osteotechnology, which extends its utility up to ten years. He added that this donation is regulated by the General Law of Health.

They'll use the bodies in the modules of the first phase of the educational program in Medical Surgeon, also, they can be used in other degrees such as Nutrition or Nursery where they also have this kind of practices. It is an indispensable requirement that the bodies willing to be donated haven't suffered an accident or be victims of criminal acts.

The human bodies with teaching purposes are held in the amphitheater of the Department of medicine and Nutrition in the venue 20 de enero of Campus León, which has equipped with cold storage; and flatbeds which are used by the students to practice.

Currently, there are two human bodies in the amphitheater which in life were Dorotha Franziska Stavroudis, from Austria, Vienna, 91 years old and nurse by profession; and Sandra Faye Blackburn, from Sweden, Stockholm, 58 years old and retired scientist.

Dr. Chávez expressed that "the donation is an altruist act at the end of life which represents a way to stay alive, because for the University, a body with research and educational purposes represents the best didactic material to learn health subjects (...) it works better than the technological resources or plastic models for education."

People who are interested in donating their body can contact Dr. Gerardo Chávez to the email Esta dirección de correo electrónico está protegida contra spambots. Usted necesita tener Javascript activado para poder verla. or the phone (477) 2674900 extension 3682, after that you could fill a form with two witnesses, finally you'll be provided with a card that specifies the steps to follow in the event of the donor's death.

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