State Anatomical Program

State Anatomical Program: Donating Your Body to Science

You give many gifts in your lifetime but there is one special gift that will make a significant and lasting contribution: the gift of donating your body to medical science through the Virginia Department of Health's State Anatomical Program.

Donation is a gift of education to the many hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health professionals studying in Virginia’s medical schools, colleges and universities who must learn how the human body is constructed before they can successfully treat living patients. No models, films or books can substitute for the actual study of the human body itself.

VDH’s State Anatomical Program is the only entity in Virginia authorized to receive donations of human bodies for scientific study. The primary mission of the State Anatomical Program is to educate health professionals providing human donors for the teaching of anatomy and surgery and for medical research.

Every Virginian has the opportunity to make a valuable and generous gift to the living - the gift of his or her body after death for study and research in medical science.