On Monday, May 13, 2024, a Celebration of Remembrance was hosted by the Humanity Gifts Registry and held at the Irvine Auditorium, University of Pennsylvania. The annual event honors the individuals who donated their bodies to medical education and research.

All Philadelphia medical schools participate in this memorial event, which is made possible by medical students, and attended by the family members and loved ones of the donors. Several Drexel University College of Medicine medical students volunteered and participated in the program. Below is the eulogy, delivered by Mekha Varghese, MD class of 2027, to attendees.

Eulogy, Mekha Varghese, MD class of 2027

My name is Mekha, and I am a first-year medical student. I stand before you on behalf of my medical school colleagues to express my deepest gratitude and heartfelt appreciation to you and your loved one who chose to selflessly donate their body for the benefit and education of medical trainees. Amid your grief and healing, I hope these words provide comfort and give insight into a fraction of the lasting impact your loved one has had on an entire generation of students.

Many of your loved ones who have passed spent their lives devoted to several personal professional causes—working with their hands, caring for children, programming computers, volunteering with nonprofits, creating visual art or music, working in nature, civil service—the list is endless. While we didn’t have the opportunity to know your loved ones in these roles, we will forever remember them as our greatest and first professional teachers.

I’m sure many of us can remember the name, face or influence a teacher has had on our education. Coming from a family of teachers myself, I can recall several stories of students who have returned years and decades after their time in the classroom to share the lasting imprint that the kindness and generosity a teacher has on the trajectory of their lives. As those closest to the most important teachers we may ever have, I wish to provide a glimpse into the expanding impact your loved one has created in just the last few months, as I’ve personally experienced and witnessed from classmates.

Thank you to our teachers:

• Who instilled in us an understanding of our shared humanity, our collective hopes, fears and dreams.
• Who catalyzed friendships and connections between students across geographic and social boundaries.
• Who ignited our fierce determination to continue to engage in research and find answers and therapies to treat the cancers and ailments affecting so many people.
• Who broke down our walls and transformed our passion for abstract medicine and science into a calling to sit with others in their realest, deepest and most vulnerable times.
• And most importantly, thank you to our teachers, whose patience and generosity and willingness to take a chance on us prompt us to think, “I hope in life I can pay forward an ounce of the lasting change you’ve had on me.”

They say we don’t always remember exactly what our teachers have taught us. We remember all the ways teachers make us feel, change and grow. These sentiments are hopefully a testament to all the lives your loved ones have changed permanently, and all the lives they will continue to change, that you may never meet.

To all of you who call our beloved teachers, “mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, uncle, lover, friend”—we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing your loved one with us through the incredible gift you both have given. We stand alongside you in the complexity of emotions that accompany your loss to offer our love and sympathy, as students whose lives have been forever changed by their enduring legacy.

Thank you.