Do you get your very own cadaver or share?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Twitch

Full Member
10+ Year Member
7+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2004
Messages
1,450
Reaction score
2
Does any school provide this or do you typically share your cadaver with others?

1 cadaver : 1 student?
 
After having gone through anatomy last year, I can definitely say that I, for SURE, would not want a cadaver to myself! That is a whole lot of work for one person to do...The more, the merrier...I'm glad I had 3-4 other people on my team to help when I was not in the mood to dissect.
 
Y_Marker said:
Does any school provide this or do you typically share your cadaver with others?

1 cadaver : 1 student?

I've never heard of schools that provide 1 cadaver to 1 student. I heard that cadavers are not that easy to get.
 
as cool as you think that would be.....you would change your mind when you learned the joys of removing fat and fascia for hours on end
 
So it's typically 3-4 people : 1 cadaver?

Logistically how does that work? All your team members take turn to dissect a particular section?

From stickyboy's PDF on NSUCOM, it looks like it's 5 to a group with two alternating groups. So really 10 people?
 
I don't think any med school on the planet has a 1:1 ratio.

Cadvers are very hard to get (how many people do you know who are positive they are going to donate their entire body to science when they die??) It's also a very popular question to ask on a med student tour "how many students to a body?"

Also, if you have a prosected cadaver it makes things much easier.
 
Most schools have 4 or 5 people to a cadaver which is a good number. In the limbs two people can dissect, one on each side, and two people direct/pimp/observe so it works out well. In the head it becomes tighter but still 4 people can work well together and usually head is not first and by then people are less excited about "cutting". Also, you can “body surf” the room and check out what other people are cutting and the prosections (if they are available at your school) if you want to see anatomical variations or just to see what things look like in different bodies (you need to because exams are usually tagged on all of the bodies). NSU has two groups of 5, or 10 people, to a cadaver. They seem to be happy with it, and I can see how it would work, you can still see everything without having to clean it out yourself. However, I feel as if I learn better when I see things dissected out for myself and how tissues are held together.
 
Y_Marker said:
So it's typically 3-4 people : 1 cadaver?
Logistically how does that work? All your team members take turn to dissect a particular section?

From my experience, typically one or two people are cutting, one person's holding a book, and one or two people are supervising/floating around the lab to look at other bodies. The actual work is pretty tedious; you might spend a couple hours dissecting an area out only to find that the structure you were looking for is now somewhere in the pile of tissue you just removed. That's why it's a good idea to spend some time floating around the lab, some things will be very easy to see on one body and non-existent on others. Some people love to cut, others will likely never lift a scapel, everybody will find their niche. In the end all that matters is that you can ID the structures.
 
bodymechanic said:
From my experience, typically one or two people are cutting, one person's holding a book, and one or two people are supervising/floating around the lab to look at other bodies. The actual work is pretty tedious; you might spend a couple hours dissecting an area out only to find that the structure you were looking for is now somewhere in the pile of tissue you just removed. That's why it's a good idea to spend some time floating around the lab, some things will be very easy to see on one body and non-existent on others. Some people love to cut, others will likely never lift a scapel, everybody will find their niche. In the end all that matters is that you can ID the structures.


Does LECOM-Fl have prosected cadavers like LECOM-Pa?
 
Well, let me be the first to say that I am a group of 1 in my lab and I do have my very own cadaver to myself. I'm a student at KCOM. Ok, let me clarify - I'm a master's student/DO student-to-be, but yes, I do have my own cadaver. It's the same gross anatomy class taken with all of the DO students but for whatever reason, they wanted me to have my own cadaver.

Let me tell you, working on a cadaver by yourself is awesome!!! While it's true that there are times you wish you had a little help skinning somebody's big ole' gut and thighs, you learn way more when it's all "on you." YOU have to find everything yourself and when it's you that's constantly looking at the anatomy before you and every little cut that's made, you can recall things just by seeing them in your mind's eye pretty easily, even after a whole quarter has passed. Plus the thing I really like is that if you need to go slower, you can and still be able to come in on your own time and not have to worry about trying to figure out everyone's schedule (in a group of 4-5). Plus there's no worrying about someone else screwing up the dissection, just because they want to hurry and get home already. It's all you baby!

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure this kind of opportunity won't come to most of you but I thought I'd chime in since I've had the opportunity this year.
 
Dr Trek 1 said:
Does LECOM-Fl have prosected cadavers like LECOM-Pa?
I believe so. I was talking about my experience in another institution which had around 18 bodies for a class of 80 or so.

I can definitely see Nate's point that something about actually taking the tissues apart helps to cement the info into your brain. The prosection will be nice, however, just to free up more study time. I am an anatomy junkie, so I'll probably be looking for more dissection opportunites.
 
Y_Marker said:
Does any school provide this or do you typically share your cadaver with others?

1 cadaver : 1 student?

At OSU-COM:

-Class size = 88
-2 Labs = 44 per lab
-8 total people/body = 4 people/body/lab --> each lab section dissects half of the structures of the body and 2 people are assigned to each side of the body for the semester

Thus, you and your lab partner will be responsible for dissection of 1/4 of the body.

We also have a couple of prosected cadavers to help with dissection and studying. School that have prosected cadavers only put students at a great disadvantage. If you have to spend time search for structures to dissect, you know them alot better than if you just look at them already dissected it. I know this because I performed better on exams on the portions of the body I actually dissected.
 
Y_Marker said:
Does any school provide this or do you typically share your cadaver with others?

1 cadaver : 1 student?


hehe...this sounded funny when I read it.

I'd like my very own cadaver please....and he/shes all mine....and mine alone............grrrrrrrrrrrrr
(God bless their souls!)
 
Wayne state (Detroit) the cadaver:student ratio is 4:1.
 
Sundarban1 said:
Wayne state (Detroit) the cadaver:student ratio is 4:1.


u mean the student:cadaver ratio is 4:1 not the cadaver:student ratio.
 
DMU works exactly like OSU described their program. Personally, I would not want any more cadaver time than I had. I never learned much when I was dissecting & had to spend much more time outside of my scheduled lab time on the days when I did all the dissecting.
 
ppormansdoormd said:
u mean the student:cadaver ratio is 4:1 not the cadaver:student ratio.


No, 4 cadavers per student in Detroit. It was a joke!

Get it? Detroit, abundance of dead bodies...oh well.
 
NSU: You are correct.
We had about 5 ppl in our group, and only dissected one of the two labs a week, so 10 total. That being said....

...Of the 5 ppl in our group, usually only 4 would show up.
...2 of those spent their time walking around and chekcing out other specimines.
...So, at any given time, there was only about 2 ppl cutting...and often we had to chase down ppl to help us get the work done.
...Often the other group didn't get their work done, so if you really like it--there was ALWAYS plenty of extra work to do in advanced, over the weekend, in the evenings, etc.

I hated cutting, and if I had to do it again...I would ask to be assigned to a group that didn't even dissect (an option if you choose so)...
 
How many of you would donate your body to science? Hmm...i wonder how much they pay..im kinda broke at the moment 😀
 
If the OP would like a cadaver for himself/herself, I could go get you a fresh one. Just PM with what features you would like it to have. I'll give u the shipping free. I have some free range you could even pick out yourself.
 
I wish there was 20 people to a cadaver instead of 4. That **** sucks.
 
Top