Dissection Vs. Prosection

[sga814]

Just wondering what you guys think is better. Personally, I think prosection would be better because that way you'd spend more time looking for important structures rather than wasting time or cutting things you shouldn't be cutting. My school uses dissection btw, and I think anatomy would have been better w/prosection (we end up just watching professors dissect things anyway).

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[peppy]

Michigan State does prosections and I prefer it this way. I think it entirely depends on your learning style. I guess for some people digging around in there with their own two hands reinforces the concepts, but I felt I learned more from spending the hours I would have spent cutting looking at Netter's and Rohen's instead.
First Neuroscience lab practical later today...here's hoping that my study strategy still works. :-D

 

[sga814]

Michigan State does prosections and I prefer it this way. I think it entirely depends on your learning style. I guess for some people digging around in there with their own two hands reinforces the concepts, but I felt I learned more from spending the hours I would have spent cutting looking at Netter's and Rohen's instead.
First Neuroscience lab practical later today...here's hoping that my study strategy still works. :-D

Good luck w/ that... I am studying neuro as well right now. Well.. I really really should be.

 

[AStudent]

We did dissection at WSU and I wish we would had prosections and have all hours access. It just gets tedious with six people hanging over 1 body trying to "contribute" and 300 students trying to cram into a small room to see 4-5 prosections. Having open prosections = 👍

 

[subtle1epiphany]

Another MSU med student here.
I really enjoyed anatomy and the neuro now is interesting as well. Everything is prosection, but there is an elective dissection course where you work with the undergrads/grads to prepare the specimens.
While I would like to dissect for the experience and hope to find the time next year, I don't feel like I missed out too much. There may be some impt things, such as the feel for it, and perhaps a little on those structures that you spent hours to get a clean dissection. Still it's a tough call.

 

[CerealBox]

what exactly is the difference between dissection & prosection (thanks... sorry for the stupid question)

 

[Law2Doc]

what exactly is the difference between dissection & prosection (thanks... sorry for the stupid question)

dissection = you cut. Prosection means you look at what someone else cut. The latter is more professionally done. The former gives you hand on experience, and in my opinion, you remember it better. Sort of like trying to learn without doing something active like taking notes. For some it works, for others, it never sticks.

 

[Ypo.]

Is it possible to do dissection in a semester? We do anatomy via prosection in a semester, and I know other schools do anatomy in 7 weeks-I don't see how dissection would fit into that schedule.

I think you learn it better (and remember it better) when you dissect, because it takes a long time, and you remember digging out this structure and how deep it was. But I am sure glad I didn't have to saw through skull. And you don't know what the heck you are cutting at first so I have heard you end up butchering a lot of stuff.

I don't think we get a large enough volume of cadavers for dissection, anyways. Unfortunately at my school, most of the bodies were less than fresh (some of them really needed to be retired), so they looked more like mummies than cadavers.

 

[DianaLynne]

I'm going to have to say a mixture of the two is best. There's a lot to be said for exploring on your own. Digging out the brachial plexus was really exciting and one of the best labs I've had in med school. However, our last anatomy lab was digging out the neurovasculature of the pelvic floor; I was thrilled to have a faculty member do a lot of the work. 😀

Of course, we've been working on these bods since September, they're not in the most beautiful shape anymore. I wish there was more opportunity to have help rather than just have the students flailing around cutting out all the good stuff, but taking the scapels and the probes completely away would not make me happy. 🙁

 

[emack]

I'm going to have to say a mixture of the two is best. There's a lot to be said for exploring on your own.

We started anatomy by digging around & extracting the big thoracic & abdominal structures. After that, since we do a relatively short & intense course, it was mostly prosections.

I think maybe they let us do some digging on our own at first so we'd get an appreciation for the amount of time & skill that goes into the finer prosections. Made us take better care of them (if the fact that they're human body parts isn't reason enough to show care & respect).

 

[judgehopkins]

Having been on the student side of the prosection scale, an undergrad kinesiology student, and then on the dissection side of the scale, preparing bodies for a prosections lab, at Western Michigan University, prosection is the way to go. Dissection as a student is a huge waste of time. Having spent four hours last week digging out the superficial palmer arch on a body I can definitely say that the amount of time spent dissecting out this structure would have been better spent studying out of Netter. Luckily I am doing research for my Master's thesis so I have plenty of time available to dissect for my job but when I start med school this summer I can definitely say that I would not want the distraction of having to spend 200 hours carving.

That said, a properly processed body could take 200 - 300 hours to dissect.

and remember, friends help you move, real friends help you move dead bodies.

 

[trudub]

I thought dissection was great. As you dissect thinking about what structures you need to be careful to avoid in relation to other structures and actually physically getting your hands dirty were great for learning I think.

 

[Tiki]

We had to dissect the entire semester. There was one prosected body that one of our professors did, and I can honestly say I learned the most studying off the prosected body. Dissection to me was a huge waste of time.

 

[Pembleton]

In a biomed science program I was in I was taught by prosection. In medical school, I'm learning by dissection. Maybe having studied the prosections in grad school helped me now but I think dissecting is much better than having the already processed information thrown at me.

Also with the dissections, I learned a little about myself: that I love to cut and see those little buggers.

 

[OddNath]

dissection = you cut. Prosection means you look at what someone else cut. The latter is more professionally done. The former gives you hand on experience, and in my opinion, you remember it better. Sort of like trying to learn without doing something active like taking notes. For some it works, for others, it never sticks.

At UT-H, student tank groups took turns doing the prosections. That way, 7 tanks each lab had a nice prosection and everyone else dissected.
Prosections took a while..

 

[DrThom]

We use both at Wake....I think you get the best of both worlds

 

[deuist]

I say that we do away with anatomy lab altogether. Let's learn the real anatomy that doctors need to know---radiographs.

 

[Shredder]

Just found this thread, and now that it's relevant to me I'd like to say prosection. Dissection takes much too long, sometimes I skip it and let my partners prosect. Hour after hour spent cutting things up, cleaning them, or butchering them is time that would be valuable for studying and identifying instead.

Bump, and I'd like to hear if any other new first years have opinions on it

 

[UCLAstudent]

We used both. Thorax, perineum and head/neck were prosections, while GI and muscles were dissection. The prosections were so much more efficient. There were times when my group was unable to finish the assigned dissection in the scheduled time --- which stinks because the faculty were only really available to help/answer questions during the lab period. The new MSIs will be using only prosections.

 

[Shredder]

In spite of arguments in favor of dissections, I think they're pretty antiquated and mostly rooted in tradition. I wonder how long they will persist. They really take good chunks of time that can be devoted elsewhere, and even physical energy. I do think there's some value in touching, cutting and feeling to get more perspective, but it doesn't have to represent the bulk of the course.

 

[dilated]

I think prosections are kind of worthless. Rohen's gives you 80% of what you get out of a prosection.

Dissection also wastes a lot of time, but it forces you to be an active participant in anatomy, which helps a lot. Also most schools nowdays have 5-6 person cadaver groups so you only have to dissect every other day (3/3 rotation). Plus this is probably the only time in our careers I'll actually get to see most of this stuff so it's kind of nice to get in there and dig around.

 

[psipsina]

I definitely think that dissection helps me learn. If I spend a half an hour searching out a vessel and digging it out, I rarely forget it. However, I really can't focus through my schools 4 hour mandatory dissections, after a little over two hours my mind sets up some sort of barrier to any more anatomy entering. And having to come in after hours is a drag because my time outside of school is so valuable and it does seem to suck up a ton of my time. I also worry that I'm not coming in enough outside of school, we always keep up with where we should be with the dissections, but it seems like some of my classmates spend alot of time in lab,. . I'm afraid I'm missing some essential study habit. Oh well.

 

[45408]

judgehopkins - we would never spend that much time on JUST the superficial palmar arch. Our group probably spent 2-4 hours on the hand, but not just one single structure. I don't think dissection takes that long, as long as you don't try to get EVERY structure. One group had a good suprascapular artery and nerve, so nobody else bothered looking for it. I had the median nerve dissected from trunk to the palm, so that was the one that was on the practical exam. I don't even know where the long thoracic nerve or thoracodorsal nerve was on our cadaver, but the one they tagged was clearly seen. I think a prosection would be highly unlikely to stay in my brain.

also, wouldn't they have to do a fresh prosection fairly often so that the structures didn't get nasty? the structures our bodies are drying out pretty quickly after they're dissected.

 

[fun8stuff]

Just wondering what you guys think is better. Personally, I think prosection would be better because that way you'd spend more time looking for important structures rather than wasting time or cutting things you shouldn't be cutting. My school uses dissection btw, and I think anatomy would have been better w/prosection (we end up just watching professors dissect things anyway).

I made my anatomy experience a prosection one... our body had cancer all over and much of the internal organs were either not recognizable or not there. So, I spent most of my time at other bodies. I believe this is one of the reasons I scored near perfect scores on the lab exams.

With dissection you often spend only 10% of your time looking at the actual structure you are looking for and you only get to see 1 variation of it. If you wander from body to body you will spend 90% of your time looking at the structures you need to learn, you will learn the variations of the structure, and you will be using your time much more efficiently. You will save tons of time and will likely learn more.

If you are a visual learner (opposed to tactile learner) I would recommend trying to see as many structures on as many different bodies as possible. Our exams were setup so 1 to 3 structures would be marked on 50+ cadavers, so it was to your advanage to see as many bodies as possible. Focus on finding "landmarks" to help you identify structures.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I definitely think that dissection helps me learn. If I spend a half an hour searching out a vessel and digging it out, I rarely forget it. However, I really can't focus through my schools 4 hour mandatory dissections, after a little over two hours my mind sets up some sort of barrier to any more anatomy entering. And having to come in after hours is a drag because my time outside of school is so valuable and it does seem to suck up a ton of my time. I also worry that I'm not coming in enough outside of school, we always keep up with where we should be with the dissections, but it seems like some of my classmates spend alot of time in lab,. . I'm afraid I'm missing some essential study habit. Oh well.

You know, I was feeling like that, but I'm past it now. I'm not going to go in to lab afterhours, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. I'm hoping Netters and dissection videos will get me through, and if I don't get an A, it's still worth it. 🙂

On the bigger topic, I'd like prosection more. I don't enjoy dissection and don't really get much out of it.