Letters to Silent Teachers in Tzu Chi Medical School: A Spiritual Interaction

Abstract

This article examines the spiritual communication between medical students and the donated dead body they anatomized, referred to as the silent teacher. Data were obtained from the medical school of Tzu Chi University in Taiwan, where students are required to write a letter to the silent teacher at the end of the semester after they have anatomized the body. The school has collected and published a total of 89 letters from 1996 to 2001. This article content analyzes all the 89 letters published and draws common themes from them. Based on the results of this content analysis, we have developed a model of spiritual communication.

Nursing Students’ Perceptions of a Silent Mentor Program in an Anatomy Course

“…This study explored nursing students’ perceptions of integrating a silent mentor program into their human anatomy course. Previously, the silent mentor program focused on assisting medical education for students and physicians in Taiwan (Chen et al, ; Her, ) and Malaysia (Santibañez et al, ; Saw, ). The present study is the first to explore the learning experience of the nursing student population.…”

“…Although the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) states that “the normal practice is to retain donor anonymity” (FICEM, ), the silent mentors’ names and brief medical and life histories are honorably posted on the website of the university for the students and the public to view. Through the silent mentor program, an intimate relationship develops between medical students, cadavers, and the families of silent mentors (Chen et al, ; Chang, ). Many medical schools have duplicated this successful experience of silent mentor programs (Johnson, ; Santibañez et al, ; Chiou et al, ; Saw, ); this has enriched both professional skills and humanistic spirit.…”

Human body donation programs inSriLanka: Buddhist perspectives

“…In some instances the students visit the donors' families in order to learn more about the donors and their lives (Lin et al, 2009). In this way students acquire a personal relationship with the dead and their family; this is also evident in some of the letters written by the students to their "silent teacher" or donor (Chen et al, 2011).…”

“…It is interesting that eye donation started before the commencement of body donation; when this became accepted as a means of "dana" the same concept was applied to cadaver donations. The success of the currently practicing body donation program in Tzu Chi medical school in Taiwan is mainly due to its persuasive communication campaign, where mass media has been used as one of the channels for disseminating the message to the general public (Chen et al, 2008(Chen et al, , 2011. In contrast in Sri Lanka, the success of body donation programs has not been due to any persuasive communication campaigns.…”

‘Silent mentors’: Donation, education, and bodies in Taiwan

“…In the Asian region, news of the programme's success travelled, leading to cooperation between the University Malaya Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpar, and Tzu Chi in Hualien in 2012. 13 Since then, the intervening years have seen three key developments within the Silent Mentor initiative: a period where donations were made to other medical schools, provided they followed the ceremonial protocol (Chen, Chang, and Yu 2011); a broadening of uses for cadavers beyond undergraduate anatomy; and the use of the programme to train and initiate the medical faculties of other countries in this form of donation. By 2002 the Anatomy Department of Dalin Hospital (Hualien) developed a 'simulated surgery' programme, which uses donated bodies as trial patients and upon whom trainee surgeons practice techniques in conditions 11 As Huang (2015) rightly notes, this is an extended period of waiting time for families, with the 'wait' for bodies to be used in gross anatomy classes up to three years, and the wait for the more frequent simulation surgery training between two months and one year.…”