After her son decided to donate his body to Indiana University Northwest’s Cadaver Prosection program, Tasha Jetson-Bowman viewed it as a way to establish his legacy.
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“He used to tell his doctors when he had his first transplant surgery that he would be in textbooks and now he will be,” said Jetson-Bowman, 45.
Ryan Brown died on July 29, 2015, a few months after the 18-year-old had his second heart transplant. Brown was born with a congenital heart defect — his heart formed on the wrong side of his chest — and wanted doctors to study his condition to help future patients.
“He was a phenomenal kid,” she said. “From 18 to say, ‘I want to donate my body to science.’ He wasn’t thinking about fast cars and girls, he was thinking about the next person.”
The emotional service Friday at the IUN School of Medicine’s Gary campus allowed Jetson-Bowman and family members of donors to meet many of the medical students and doctors who have learned from their loved ones and share stories. The program is now in its 18th year.
“Today is closure for me,” she said. “I can talk about him and smile.”
First-year medical students lit candles and read thank you letters for each of the service’s eight donors — Jeri Lyn Hansen, Shannon French-Holt, Patricia St. John, Judith Ann Wilson, Brown, David McLaughlin, Jeffrey Dolezal and Maurice Little.
Students in the university’s ROTC program provided military honors for Little.
“For me, I feel it’s an obligation that we have to the patient and their family for the gift that they are giving to us,” said program director Dr. Ernest Talarico. “It isn’t just their body. We’ve shown that this kind of program teaching philosophy makes a better physician.”
For Arnold Obungu, a first-year medical student, learning about Brown’s life underlined that patients were more than “cases to be solved,” he said.
“I think having this experience reinforces that. This is a decision that they made, completely selfless,” Obungu said.
For Kristie French, 60, of Evansville, the service also brought her closure after the death of her daughter, Shannon French-Holt, a mother of two, from breast cancer at 38 on March 11, 2016.
In October 2010, French-Holt was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, a rare form for a patient in her 30s, her mother said.
“She knew that would take her life; she didn’t know when,” her mother said. “She fought really hard because she had so many adversaries.”
French-Holt initially went through two surgeries and later developed a serious kidney infection, she said. Her mother retired from teaching in 2015 to care for her daughter.
“She knew that would be her last year,” French said.
French-Holt, who worked for the Southwestern Indiana Builders Association in Evansville helped organized the area’s annual parade of homes was a consummate planner, but did not want a traditional funeral, French said.
She left the details up to her mother.
When a friend suggested her daughter could donate her body to science, French said she suggested it to her daughter.
“Her bucket list was make a difference in someone’s life,” French said. “It gives you closure. It’s such a relief. It’s really a godsend and a blessing.”
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