Among their bodies of work
One week from today, West Los Angeles resident Betty Berdiansky, a computer project coordinator at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, will be among 17 U.S. “body donors” who will board a plane for Heidelberg, Germany, on an all-expense-paid visit to tour the facility where their bodies will eventually be preserved for possible display in “Body Worlds,” an anatomical exhibition on view at the California Science Center. The exhibition includes full-body specimens donated for “plastination,” a process by which body fluids are replaced with plastics.
Berdiansky said it came as a surprise at a Sept. 14 meeting of potential body donors when German doctor Gunther von Hagens, who invented the process, invited the attendees on the trip.
“I am already an organ donor on my driver’s license, but I feel that at the tender age of 61 my organs may not be too donate-able, and I thought this was a wonderful alternative because it is so educational,” she said.
Museum officials, including Jeffrey N. Rudolph, the president and chief executive, will also travel to Germany at Von Hagens’ expense. Museum staffers are not required to donate to travel, but Rudolph says he’s pretty sure he will -- although he has not filled out the donor forms.
The executive says he would like his body to become a permanent part of the California Science Center’s World of Life display.
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