The president of a Texas hospital resigned just months after an investigation uncovered that the facility chopped up unclaimed bodies to use for medical research.
Sylvia Trent-Adams, who served as the president of University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth for less than three years, abruptly stepped down from her role, according to a statement from the facility on Monday.
The UNT Board of Regents confirmed the resignation in a statement, describing the change as a mutual agreement between both the university and Trent-Adams, but did not go as far to include a reason why.
‘The Board of Regents and the UNT System are grateful for Dr. Trent-Adams’ contributions and service to HSC,’ the statement read.
‘Both as President and previously Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Trent-Adams served HSC and its students with dedication, integrity and respect.’
The resignation comes just four months after NBC News released the first part of a year-long investigation into the science center’s practice of chopping up, studying and leasing out bodies of the unclaimed dead.
The report, which was released in September of 2024, found that the hospital got their hands on roughly 2,350 unclaimed bodies from Dallas and Tarrant countries, NBC 5 reported.
Many of the bodies were used as a way to train medical staff. Others were dissected and leased out to outside entities, such as major biotech companies and the US Army to train doctors and students.
Sylvia Trent-Adams, who served as the president of University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth for less than three years, suddenly resigned, according to a university statement on Monday
Trent-Adams’s abrupt resignation comes just four months after NBC News released the first part of a yearlong investigation into the science center’s practice of chopping up, studying and leasing out bodies of the unclaimed dead
Shockingly, the investigation also uncovered the hospital’s use of ‘water cremation.’ Not only was the medical school studying on unclaimed human remains without permission, but they would later allegedly turn the bodies into liquid.
Disposal of the bodies was mandated by the state, but the school was saving $1 million over five years by doing it themselves instead of paying an outside company to do it.
The Health Science Center announced that it was suspending its body donation program just days before the investigation went public.
Additionally, the officials who ran the program were fired.
Trent-Adams emailed both students and faculty and said that the reporting ‘revealed a lack of controls and oversight’ of the center’s Willed Body Program, NBC 5 reported.
She said that the program had ultimately ‘fallen short of the standards of respect, care and professionalism that we demand.’
The center’s leadership, Trent-Adams explained, had been unaware that the program was frequently shipping unclaimed bodies across state lines. Some of those bodies reportedly included US military veterans.
In the days after her email, Trent-Adams was still receiving numerous messages from concerned staff, students and alumni about what they had learned through the report.
After the investigation went public, Trent-Adams emailed students and faculty of the university and said the program had ultimately ‘fallen short of the standards of respect, care and professionalism that we demand’
One student wrote that they were taught ‘consent is at the forefront of the practice of medicine’ but the NBC reporting ‘called into question whether the administration was practicing this in our academic anatomy lab,’ NBC 5 reported.
Another student said: ‘It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we dissected bodies without consent. We referred to them as “donors” because that is what we thought they were, not indigent individuals who had no say in the matter.’
The report claimed that the medical school was using bodies of those whose family members often couldn’t be reached as well as those whose relatives couldn’t pay for a cremation or burial after their death.
Although many of the bodies had no next of kin, NBC News located several families who were angered and heartbroken after hearing the news.
In October, the outlet published another document which included hundreds of names of those who were dissected and studied without permission. The report led to more survivors coming forward.
Reporters were able to successfully identify more than 25 families who learned much too late that their loved one was used for research.
Abigail Willson, a woman who was seeking out answers after learning her mother had passed away from the list of names, went to the center with her family to request more information in October, NBC 5 reported.
A staff member told the Willson family that Trent-Adams wished to meet with them, but they sat there for 45 minutes without any signs of her, it was claimed. The hospital allegedly ended up taking their information but the president failed to ever call at all.
The Health Science Center had been receiving bodies since as far back as 2019, which is three years before Trent-Adams took on the position after her career as a US surgeon general in the military came to an end.
Despite the fallout from the investigation, Trent-Adams noted several of her achievements during her tenure, D Magazine reported.
Some of these personal wins included opening a nursing school at the university, which was awarded a $150 million grant to research Alzheimer’s disease. It was the largest grant to ever be awarded to the UNT system.
While with the US Public Health Service, Trent-Adams set up primary care clinics throughout the country for those suffering with HIV, dealt with the Flint water crisis and stood up a hospital on a mission to fight Ebola while in Liberia in 2014.
Additionally, she previously spent time treating and preventing HIV in Africa.
Trent-Adams’s resignation becomes effective at the end of the month. Her last day at the center will be on January 31.
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