Computers or Cadavers?

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musicphan

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What percentage or how many US med school anatomy programs still use cadavers?

Also, what method are the programs at the majority of the top tiered schools using?

If this has already been addressed, sorry for the redundancy. Please direct me to that thread.

Thanks,
musicphan

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Here at UCSF we use prosections. They are cadavers that are already dissected by our Anatomy faculty/department. How it generally worked was we would go in and break up into assigned groups where a faculty-member would go over all of the structures, their relation to one another, insertions, etc..and then we would come back into the lab on our own time and make sure we knew where everything was. I loved it. I think it is incredibly more efficient to go in and see perfectly dissected specimens. We also were not just exposed to one cadaver over and over, but rather we saw many different ones. There are so many anatomical anomalies that this helped me in studying. When our curriculum went through its major change this was one of them. Our anatomy hours went from well over 150 to under 100. Most of that excess time would have been spent draining and picking at fascia. I've heard the argument that our method doesn't prepare you for careers in surgery but I think that is incorrect since cutting into a living body and a cadaver are two totally different things. Prior to practicals you could go in and look at a bunch of different tagged specimens. For instance, we would go in and see head and neck anatomy (some hemisected, some transected, etc) and structures would be wire tagged with color coded answer sheets i.e. an orange wire through the stylopharyngeus, a red wire wrapped around the chordae tendonae as it branched off of the inferior alveolar nerve. That was very helpful and easier to trust then trying to eye back and forth between the specimen and Netter's.

Hope this helps.
 
Yale still uses dissection, and, personally, I wouldn't have it any other way. There is just something about picking and cutting around on our own that really burns the structures into your mind.
Thankfully, we have brand new anatomy labs with negative pressure tables that pretty much eliminated the smell. You come to appreciate it after dozens of hours you spend over your donor. FYI, there are four of us to a donor and 1 faculty member per 10 students.

Clearly, it's a matter of preference when it comes to dissection vs prosection. I would, however, be concerned if there was a school that didn't use cadavers at all.
 
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We don't have either cadavers or computers; my school uses what is called "intense mental visualization." This is where everybody in the lecture hall closes their eyes, and the instructor very vividly describes the structure in question. Some of these guys are very good; they used to be English majors or something. So anyway, they describe it and you sit there and try as hard as you can to picture what it looks like. This has been very effective for me. Anatomy is a fascinating subject. I, for example, had absolutely no idea that the human liver sort of looked like a roll of toilet paper. It's things like this that keep me motivated to learn.
 
Originally posted by MurderousDonkey
We don't have either cadavers or computers; my school uses what is called "intense mental visualization." This is where everybody in the lecture hall closes their eyes, and the instructor very vividly describes the structure in question. Some of these guys are very good; they used to be English majors or something. So anyway, they describe it and you sit there and try as hard as you can to picture what it looks like. This has been very effective for me. Anatomy is a fascinating subject. I, for example, had absolutely no idea that the human liver sort of looked like a roll of toilet paper. It's things like this that keep me motivated to learn.

what school is this?
 
i wasn't aware that some schools don't use cadavers. is this true??
 
Originally posted by Amxcvbcv
Troll University

Naw, they're too competitive, I didn't even apply. I don't need a glitzy, famous name on my diploma, ya know? I'm not that guy.
 
Originally posted by MurderousDonkey
We don't have either cadavers or computers; my school uses what is called "intense mental visualization." This is where everybody in the lecture hall closes their eyes, and the instructor very vividly describes the structure in question. Some of these guys are very good; they used to be English majors or something. So anyway, they describe it and you sit there and try as hard as you can to picture what it looks like. This has been very effective for me. Anatomy is a fascinating subject. I, for example, had absolutely no idea that the human liver sort of looked like a roll of toilet paper. It's things like this that keep me motivated to learn.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Man, that sounds good. Where can I sign up?
 
Originally posted by lola
i wasn't aware that some schools don't use cadavers. is this true??

I heard that UCLA no longer uses cadavers. I was wondering if any other schools stopped as well.

souljah1: that sounds like a terrific program. I agree that less time dissecting would allow more time to study the body parts. Maybe other schools will consider this lab style as an option.
 
I believe NYU also uses prosection.
 
Originally posted by surge
FYI, there are four of us to a donor and 1 faculty member per 10 students.

One professor for every 10 students? That sounds like heaven! We have one for every 25 students, and this is good because it spices up lab when you have to wage gladiator-esque battles with your classmates for the instructor's attention! :rolleyes:

Seriously, dissection wouldn't be so bad if I could count on an instructor's help when I needed it, instead of just relying on my consultation with Dr. Netter to make sure I'm really seeing what I think I'm seeing. As it is now, I learn more when I just sit at home and look at my atlases than when I go into lab and debate about what structures we're dissecting.
 
Originally posted by MurderousDonkey
We don't have either cadavers or computers; my school uses what is called "intense mental visualization." This is where everybody in the lecture hall closes their eyes, and the instructor very vividly describes the structure in question. Some of these guys are very good; they used to be English majors or something. So anyway, they describe it and you sit there and try as hard as you can to picture what it looks like. This has been very effective for me. Anatomy is a fascinating subject. I, for example, had absolutely no idea that the human liver sort of looked like a roll of toilet paper. It's things like this that keep me motivated to learn.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Quite possibly the funniest post I've ever read on SDN...

Thanks, I needed that!
 
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Originally posted by Entei
One professor for every 10 students? That sounds like heaven! We have one for every 25 students, and this is good because it spices up lab when you have to wage gladiator-esque battles with your classmates for the instructor's attention! :rolleyes:

Seriously, dissection wouldn't be so bad if I could count on an instructor's help when I needed it, instead of just relying on my consultation with Dr. Netter to make sure I'm really seeing what I think I'm seeing. As it is now, I learn more when I just sit at home and look at my atlases than when I go into lab and debate about what structures we're dissecting.


Yeah, we are really lucky. It turns out all these guys are generally retired surgeons who volunteer their time in the lab (which is probably why they can get so many of them). I think it's fun for them (most retired surgeons miss surgery), and it's absolutely fabulous for us, not only because you get so much attention, but because everything that comes out of their mouths is clinically relevant, and there's usually a great story attached to it ("Ah, when I was a second year resident in 1958, and we had this case, and my chief resident asked me what this was and..... ;))

Also, you soon realize, as I have, that Netter must've been smokin' something, cause nothing looks even remotely like what he would have you believe. :D
 
We still dissect at UVM. We just got done with our 11 week Human Structure and FUnction class....It was a pretty intense course and we did the whole dissection of the body....Which is quite a challenge in just 11 weeks.

The way it was set up in our lab, there were 6 people to a table, but the group was split up into 2 different teams, alternating days in the lab. So, we dissected every other day and on the days we did not dissect, the other team who was dissecting were responsible for teaching us what they did. Sometimes it was great, other times it was terrible. It seemed like one group (mine, naturally) was doing all the very difficult dissections...like finding the brachial plexus and the branches of the axillary artery in one day...ugh.

I think prosection vs. doing the old school nitty gritty fat and fascia picking are both good ways to learn. With the hands-on dissection, there is an element of discovery.....THe days I dissected were the days I learned the most. Everyone learns differently, though.

I'm just amazed I'm done with gross....craziness.
 
The new Lerner College of Med. will not be using cadavers either. I'd be interested to read more feedback from folks who go to "prosection" schools...
 
We use cadavers at UCONN and have four students per cadaver. There are anatomy professors, attendings and residents who help out in the lab. We dissect throughout the year and follow an organ-based curriculum.

We are currently doing neuroanatomy - the exam is Friday - and are lucky to have a prosected cadaver in addition to our cadavers. A couple of 4th year students who are interested in Head and Neck have done the prosection as an elective. They are available during our lab time to go over structures with us in addition to the other preceptors.

I personally have found the actual dissection to be invaluable. Although it can be tedious at times (our guy has quite a bit of adipose...), I know the material much better after we dissect than when I have only viewed the prosection.

Deirdre
 
I'm an MS1 at NYU and NYU does prosections in addition to regular dissection on cadavers, not instead of. While prosections are really helpful, I don't think they can really replace dissections, at least not as they're done at NYU. There's something about actually touching things and seeing the relationship for yourself that I think is really valuable.
 
We are Traditional Dissection without those fancy tables. It sucked! I started out really liking Gross, but the smell is tooo intense now. Thank God its all over Friday. Also, I LEARNED THE LEAST on the days I dissected. I learn by studying, but when dissecting you're too busy digging. Learning by Prosection would have been GREAT!

E. R. Monty
 
We have 4 students assigned to each cadaver, with a male and female prosection for the whole lab to compare to.

I got the most out of lab by actually going over the atlas prior to lab, and taking 5-10 min to scope out the prosection prior to beginning our dissection--not that I followed that recipe everyday.:laugh:

Something about the time put into cleaning and exposing the structures helped me to form and remember the 3D concepts. We'll see how well I retain them come Step I in 18 or so months. ;)
 
My school uses prosections and straight up dissection of cadavers. I always saw it as a right of passage for the medical student to be confronted with the cadaver on the first day of anatomy, just how incredibly strange it is, and just how incredibly privileged we are to have this opportunity. Seriously... I wouldnt' have it any other way. Furthermore, I agree with previous posters, in that I really didn't learn the stuff until I had cut it out by my self.
 
i too cannot imagine taking anatomy without cadavers and doing the dissection on your own; however, i got very little out of doing the dissection. as far as time efficiency goes, i think it is an anachronistic practice. i think it is used more as a "rite of passage" for med students than a proven educational method. a parade of cadavers that are impeccably dissected would be time better spent (for me anyway) as well as online resources like some schools are willing to post (u w madison has some wonderful dissections online) are more helpful to me. i guess it depends what you mean by beneficial. i could see dissection on your own being more beneficial if you were sure you wanted to do surgery and wanted some hands on experience with anatomical relationships. however, if you just want to do well on the practical but doubt that you are an aspiring surgeon, there seems to be far more efficient means of assimilating the material.
 
We used dissections, online simulations, online dissections, and prosections. We have 4 students per cadaver and 6-7 instructors floating around to help us...most of our instructors have PhDs in anatomy but a few are retired surgeons. We were in lab 3 days a week and I loved it-- there really is something about finding everything and tracing it out that helped me solidify it in my mind. There's something about being able to wrap your hand around a muscle and trace it all the way up to it's origin and insertion, and find the nerve that goes to it and see where that's coming from that helps me learn it. The prosections were great (especially in the foot and pelvis) because they had certain things removed to allow you to see what was underneath more completely. I really enjoyed anatomy lab...mostly b/c it was the one time I wasn't sitting on my butt in a classroom all day.
 
Originally posted by jwin
i too cannot imagine taking anatomy without cadavers and doing the dissection on your own; however, i got very little out of doing the dissection. as far as time efficiency goes, i think it is an anachronistic practice. i think it is used more as a "rite of passage" for med students than a proven educational method. a parade of cadavers that are impeccably dissected would be time better spent (for me anyway) as well as online resources like some schools are willing to post (u w madison has some wonderful dissections online) are more helpful to me. i guess it depends what you mean by beneficial. i could see dissection on your own being more beneficial if you were sure you wanted to do surgery and wanted some hands on experience with anatomical relationships. however, if you just want to do well on the practical but doubt that you are an aspiring surgeon, there seems to be far more efficient means of assimilating the material.

I totally disagree with this post. I believe cadavers are very important in the medical school, it is even more imperative that med students dissect themselves, instead of instructors dissecting for them. Over here in UGMS... there is a lot of emphasis on cadaveric work on the first day. We received our set of bones during our orientation week. We were all happy and felt confident. We were introduced to the cadavers on our first day. After a 4 hour lecture in Anatomy. It was a real shock. At that moment, an aspiring medical doctor, comes to accept his calling. That is what i experienced. The traditional system should be maintained. I am an advocate of change. Computer stimulated dissections are a great help... but plz don't call for a complete stoppage of hands on dissections. I've come to realise something in the dissecting room, if you study a set of relations in netter... and see those same relations while's dissecting, it sticks better.
I hope y'all relate. ;)
 
Originally posted by ermonty
We are Traditional Dissection without those fancy tables. It sucked! I started out really liking Gross, but the smell is tooo intense now. Thank God its all over Friday. Also, I LEARNED THE LEAST on the days I dissected. I learn by studying, but when dissecting you're too busy digging. Learning by Prosection would have been GREAT!

E. R. Monty

monty
you guys still doing dissections third and fourth year?
 
Originally posted by Akuffo
I totally disagree with this post. I believe cadavers are very important in the medical school, it is even more imperative that med students dissect themselves, instead of instructors dissecting for them. Over here in UGMS... there is a lot of emphasis on cadaveric work on the first day. We received our set of bones during our orientation week. We were all happy and felt confident. We were introduced to the cadavers on our first day. After a 4 hour lecture in Anatomy. It was a real shock. At that moment, an aspiring medical doctor, comes to accept his calling. That is what i experienced. The traditional system should be maintained. I am an advocate of change. Computer stimulated dissections are a great help... but plz don't call for a complete stoppage of hands on dissections. I've come to realise something in the dissecting room, if you study a set of relations in netter... and see those same relations while's dissecting, it sticks better.
I hope y'all relate. ;)

all learning is idiosyncratic. you cannot make statements like

"if you study a set of relations in netter... and see those same relations while's dissecting, it sticks better"

because for me it did not. i hit the mean on my first practical after doing all the dissecting and on the second two i spent very little time in lab and was at least a SD above the mean. if it works for you, then great. but visual learning is not a good way to learn anatomy because size, shape, the path a vessel takes are quite variable, learning the relationships, ie occipital artery runs with CNXII, is how you can quickly and accurately identify structures.
 
Originally posted by periodista
monty
you guys still doing dissections third and fourth year?

Uh, your talking about MCG right? We have Gross the first semester. We used to have 2 Quarters of it b4 the semester system. Thats the only change. How could any school have Gross during years 3/4? You're doing rotations then!

E. R. Monty
 
Originally posted by jwin
all learning is idiosyncratic. you cannot make statements like

"if you study a set of relations in netter... and see those same relations while's dissecting, it sticks better"

because for me it did not. i hit the mean on my first practical after doing all the dissecting and on the second two i spent very little time in lab and was at least a SD above the mean. if it works for you, then great. but visual learning is not a good way to learn anatomy because size, shape, the path a vessel takes are quite variable, learning the relationships, ie occipital artery runs with CNXII, is how you can quickly and accurately identify structures.

I think opinions are like noses... we all have one. I think we agree to disagree. I accept the fact that there are variations in the human body.
Knowing that there is an abnormal artery to the thyroid which is in the region of the trachea... will enable to take precautions, whiles performing a tracheotomy. Don't you think ur career as a medic would be better served if u knew the normal and abnormal?
In my view, learn to appreciate the normal relations... and understand variations that's all.
Too bad we do not see this in the same view. :love:
 
Originally posted by denali
We have 4 students assigned to each cadaver, with a male and female prosection for the whole lab to compare to.

I got the most out of lab by actually going over the atlas prior to lab, and taking 5-10 min to scope out the prosection prior to beginning our dissection--not that I followed that recipe everyday.:laugh:

Something about the time put into cleaning and exposing the structures helped me to form and remember the 3D concepts. We'll see how well I retain them come Step I in 18 or so months. ;)

Don't kill yourself studying anatomy for Step 1. The general consensus of most people is that anatomy is hardly tested. First Aid has about all you need to know, other then, of course, a general understanding of where things are which everybody hopefully gets from gross.

This is under the theory that you only have a limited amount of time to study for Step 1 so it is best to hit the "high yield" subjects hard.

Except for reading the relevant sections in First Aid, I totally blew-off both anatomy and biochemistry when I was studying for Step 1. I did pretty well on it, too. Your mileage will, of course, vary.
 
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