Health ministry expands who may dissect donated bodies

The health ministry said Monday it broadened the pool of doctors allowed to dissect and teach anatomy on donated bodies and set new permit standards for institutions that supply them, in an enforcement rule that took effect the same day.

The revision removes a requirement that had limited dissection rights to full-time specialists at general hospitals with at least five years of service. Under the new rule, any physician or dentist working at a medical, dental or Korean medicine school or at a medical institution may dissect a body once the review committee approves it.

Medical schools and general hospitals that collect and preserve bodies must now obtain permission under a separate track for institutions that provide bodies for education, alongside the existing category for research providers. The education providers must meet facility requirements covering dissection rooms, examination rooms and body storage rooms, as well as air purification, drainage and heating and cooling systems, and must have a responsible official at the assistant professor level or above, a body handling staff member and a donation counselling officer.

The rule spells out how the dissection review committee is formed and run: at least five members, including a chair chosen by the members, appointed for renewable two-year terms. At least two members must hold a master's or doctoral degree in anatomy, pathology or forensic medicine, and at least one must not work at the institution that appoints them. Members are barred from reviewing cases involving themselves, a spouse or a relative within four degrees of kinship.

Medical schools and general hospitals must submit an annual report to the minister by Dec. 31 covering the number of bodies carried over from earlier years, collected, used, provided or discarded during the year, and carried forward to the next year, as well as research titles, supervising professors, project periods and the institutions or researchers that received bodies.

The revision follows an amendment to the Act on Dissection and Preservation of Corpses passed on Nov. 11, 2025, which delegated the details to the enforcement rule. "The range of personnel with expertise in dissection who can take part in dissection and anatomy instruction will expand, and specific permit standards will be established for educational body providers that supply bodies to medical schools short of donations," Lim Eul-gi, the ministry's director-general for health care resources policy, said in a statement.

A separate clause of the rule, covering electronic submission of the annual reports, takes effect Nov. 12, 2027.