South Africa is a multi-religious country with Christianity being dominant. Christianity is the most practiced religion in the world, with more than two billion followers and a multitude of denominations that vary in spiritual values and beliefs. The practices of Christians within different denominations in South Africa are diverse. If denominations vary in this manner, the possibility of perspectives on body donation being different also exists. While some literature declares Christianity to be accepting of body donation, it is not however clear whether this is the case in the Black African Christian denominations.

This is one of the research objectives of the study by Dr Brenda De Gama, a postdoctoral DRILL research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Amidst seeking to document the cultural beliefs in the multi-ethnic context of South Africa, religious beliefs among various denominations also require documentation. This will assist anatomists to formulate dedication and commemoration ceremonies that are relevant to the contexts in which the body donor programs exist.

“When anatomists begin to consider the religious beliefs of the communities that their anatomy departments exist in, this will allow the communities to have confidence in how anatomists treat the donated cadavers during these ceremonies; this may contribute to increasing body donor rates in future” says Dr De Gama. Dr De Gama welcomes collaboration with researchers in order to continue documenting these religious beliefs from the various denominations within and beyond Christianity. This may contribute towards the provision of a stable source of cadavers for medical education in future. Increased body donation rates from various communities will also increase the probability that anatomical research findings are relevant to all of South Africa’s many cultural and ethnic groups.

Article by Dr Brenda De Gama

Clinical Anatomy

School of Laboratory Medicine and Medical Sciences