Donate

Financial donations

Donations to the museum are warmly welcomed and allow us to upgrade and expand our educational programs and spaces. They can be made via the UNSW Alumni & Giving page by selecting "The Museum of Human Disease Fund" from the drop-down menu.

Specimen donations

The museum is always interested in accepting new donations of human tissue if it improves our ability to educate students and the public about health. If you have a particular disease or condition and you would like to donate the affected part of your body to the museum as a specimen, please read the appropriate donor information statement for surgical donations (removed from your body during your lifetime via surgery) and post-mortem donations (removed from your body after you die during an autopsy).

All human tissue specimens donated to the museum require the consent of the person donating (or their parent/guardian for children). If you are donating after your death, your next of kin will also need to authorise the donation after you die.

Consent forms can be found here:

Consent form for surgical donations

Consent form for surgical donations (under-18s)

Consent form for post-mortem donations

Consent form for post-mortem donations (under-18s)

Revocation of consent form

The museum will not accept any historical specimens (for example, from schools, hospitals or other teaching institutions) without detailed consent and medical paperwork. As a general rule we tend to avoid such specimens if we haven't dealt directly with the donor, but are happy to discuss exceptional cases with the required consent paperwork.

Anatomical Donations

Please note that as our collection showcases specific parts of the body, we are unable to accept whole bodies. We are also unable to accept healthy specimens with no pathology present. If you would like to donate your body to the UNSW School of Biomedical Sciences, more information on their Bequeathal Program can be found here.

If you have a human skeleton that was used for teaching (often from medical courses prior to the 1990s), the museum cannot accept these but the Bequeathal Program sometimes can. You can contact them about donating skeletons on bequeathal@unsw.edu.au. All skeleton donations will require you to fill out this donation form.

Medical Artefacts

You are welcome to contact us if you believe that you have an artefact of interest, such as historical medical equipment or medication packaging, for our collection. 

Please note that we may not be able to accept all donations due to the specific nature of our collection, but are always happy to consider them. If you would like to discuss a potential donation, please contact us on 02 9065 0330 or diseasemuseum@unsw.edu.au.