Willed Body Program
Donors
UH Manoa
Giving
Jed Davis and his family came to the John A. Burns School of Medicine’s for the Willed Body Program’s Annual Memorial Service in remembrance of two of his loved ones who made the decision about 20 years ago to become anatomical donors, or more fondly known as “silent teachers,” for the medical school.
”When we arrived, the students came up and were talking to us. That was cool. We didn't expect that, it was really nice,” said Davis. He had walked into the conversation late and assumed the students knew his late grandfather when he was alive but later realized they had only known him after he had passed.
“It caught us off guard in a good way, but they approached us like they knew him and were telling stories about him,” said Davis. “It was a nice, humanizing touch to something like this.”
Davis’s grandfather, Army Air Force Colonel Edward Jurkens, was a World War II veteran. After retiring at the age of 50, he spent the remainder of his life doing volunteer work, including as a docent at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.
“ He just was always about giving and giving as much as he could to other people. So to have a program like this where he could give after life was a clear fit,” Davis said.
“And Barbara, his daughter, similar– just a great person. She was very involved with the Humane Society, for instance, and so it was a given basically,” said Davis. He recalls that his grandfather and aunt were very proud to know that they would continue to give of themselves even after death, through JABSOM’s Willed Body Program.
This year’s memorial was the first in-person service held since pivoting online in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.
“In the 30 plus years I've been doing this, I've never had an in-person memorial service where anybody wasn't happy that they participated in it. For the families, it gives them an opportunity to see firsthand the appreciation the students feel and realize the reverence and the pono that they put into the service,” said Willed Body Program Director Steven Labrash.
He adds, “and for the students, they know from day one that the silent teacher is somebody's aunt or uncle or brother or cousin. But to see the families and to see how impactful the service is for the families– I think is rewarding to both ends.”
Sharing personal stories of indebtedness and reverence for these silent teachers, were a faculty member and several students from the University of Hawaiʻi, including ʻImi Hoʻōla student Regan Stradtmann-Carvalho. In her heartfelt reflection, she told the audience, “in all that I have learned from your loved ones, I hope that they can, now and forever, find peace in knowing how much they have given and how much we have learned from them. They have not only touched our lives but will have touched the lives of all the patients we may one day work with and heal.”
JABSOM medical students also danced hula as tribute of profound gratitude to both their silent teachers as well the teachers’ families.
The memorial services officially concluded with the medical students scattering the cremains just out past the coast of Magic Island Beach Park. Students paddled out in canoes as the Celtic Pipes and Drums of Hawaiʻi played music in honor of the silent teachers. The families were invited to give their final goodbyes during the scattering ceremony.
“I think there’s probably no better choice you could make as you’re passing away to do something like this, it’s obviously a personal choice…” Davis said about the JABSOM Willed Body Program. “And if you make this choice, there’s no better program to honor that choice and to take full advantage of wanting to give back to the community.”
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