Gross Anatomy: Prosections vs. Dissection

[subtle1epiphany]

I've just been accepted to MSUCOM, it's so cool! I'm really excited and can't wait for the start of school...yeah, I know I'll be eating those words come September.
I do have a concern regarding how the gross anatomy class is taught, both MSUCHM and COM use prosected cadavers with actual dissection (at COM at least) being part of an elective. I'm wondering how current (O)MS1 and 2s (third and fourth years more than welcome as well) feel about their curriculum, whether it be hands-on dissection or prosection and how they would feel about the other method. Basically and compare/contrast of the two methods, I'm really curious as to the pros and cons of each.
Thanks in advance!

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[LukeWhite]

I'd have been very happy with just prosections. There's always a lot of talk about dissection as a way of experiencing the variability of the body firsthand, but as best as I could tell, "variability of the body" was just a code phrase for "unfair test question." A lot of time is wasted digging stuff out, and I have trouble believing I wouldn't have learned more if that time could have been devoted to looking at a nice, clean, plasticized piece-of-cadaver.

In fact, my grades shot up once I started organizing my study around the UoW dissection videos and Rohen rather than labwork. While you might lose some facility in learning how to wield a scalpel, anything you gain in that regard in MS-1 isn't going to be too terribly helpful down the road anyway.

Good luck!

 

[daveyboy]

I've just been accepted to MSUCOM, it's so cool! I'm really excited and can't wait for the start of school...yeah, I know I'll be eating those words come September.
I do have a concern regarding how the gross anatomy class is taught, both MSUCHM and COM use prosected cadavers with actual dissection (at COM at least) being part of an elective. I'm wondering how current (O)MS1 and 2s (third and fourth years more than welcome as well) feel about their curriculum, whether it be hands-on dissection or prosection and how they would feel about the other method. Basically and compare/contrast of the two methods, I'm really curious as to the pros and cons of each.
Thanks in advance!

Dissection was cool for about a week, then it is just a lot of work. Work that wastes a ton of time you could be spent studying anatomy.
If I had your choice I would take prosection.

 

[subtle1epiphany]

Dissection was cool for about a week, then it is just a lot of work. Work that wastes a ton of time you could be spent studying anatomy.
If I had your choice I would take prosection.

Do you feel that you might have missed out on a vital part of medical school? Dissection of a cadaver really seems to be an initiation, a rite of passage. The drudgery being a portion of that.
Also, I have heard from many students that the structures that they worked on, those that took the most work to find and learn, were the ones they knew best. That they then presented those to their "cadaver-mates" and had that experience as well as reviewing that structure again the next session. Granted, you are thoroughly learning one half of the material, but the other half is available by attending lab each time or studying by yourself, as you would otherwise. Am I correct in these observations? I am extrapolating a bit.

Do either of you who have already answered (thank you by the way), or anyone else who happens upon this thread, feel that you would or are missing out on this experience by using prosected cadavers?

 

[LukeWhite]

Do you feel that you might have missed out on a vital part of medical school? Dissection of a cadaver really seems to be an initiation, a rite of passage. The drudgery being a portion of that.

Do either of you who have already answered (thank you by the way), or anyone else who happens upon this thread, feel that you would or are missing out on this experience by using prosected cadavers?

I can almost guarantee that any desires for rites of passage will be gone within a week. Anatomy lab smells terrible and wastes precious hours, white coats are scratchy and unwieldy, etc.

You're right in that this is one of the reasons it's kept around, but frankly, it's not worth much. My favorite part of the year was the oh-so-emotional memorial service, filled with testimonies and poems, after which we dismembered our cadavers with hacksaws and hammers and tossed their severed limbs into plastic bags. Fun stuff, and it does make for great conversation at parties, but probably not worth the investment of time.

 

[subtle1epiphany]

I can almost guarantee that any desires for rites of passage will be gone within a week. Anatomy lab smells terrible and wastes precious hours, white coats are scratchy and unwieldy, etc.

You're right in that this is one of the reasons it's kept around, but frankly, it's not worth much. My favorite part of the year was the oh-so-emotional memorial service, filled with testimonies and poems, after which we dismembered our cadavers with hacksaws and hammers and tossed their severed limbs into plastic bags. Fun stuff, and it does make for great conversation at parties, but probably not worth the investment of time.

Definitely the memorial service would be an amazing event, hopefully even with the prosected cadavers there would be some sort of service to honor those who gave themselves so willingly for the good of so many others.

I do wonder what is meant by plastinated...I thought that the prosected bodies would be prepared by the faculty/staff for that session, basically that the ones who really know how to do a great job would perform the dissection and use it as a teaching reference. Because the word "plastinated" brings thoughts of dissected structures encased in plastic and being used for several years.

Can anyone shed some light on what to expect?

I'm really beginning to feel that MSUCOM might be the place for me, thanks LukeWhite for all the info!

 

[Ratch]

prosections are great. during your first term at MSU you wouldn't have time to dissect anyway. and as for a 'rite of passage' ??? i think the entire fall term of your first year is a rite of pasage at COM. i would be concentrating more (if you have choice of programs) on what schools offer the best hospital rotations for your third and fourth year; rather than how you are going to be spending time in the anatomy lab for 3 months of your training. just my two cents as a msu-com student. but they are much more important issues you should be investigating when making your school choice, IMHO.

 

[Fin-Nor]

dissection, imo, is an important aspect of anatomy in that you learn how to utilize different tools for certain areas of the body, how to separate different types of tissues, and so forth.

i can look at prosection all i want, but you still don't learn how to refine your skills.

so i'll put one down for dissection.

 

[Runtita]

Since I figured out the process, dissection has become more natural feeling. I watch the U of W streaming dissections for preview and review, I go see the anatomy fellows dissect their cadavers, and I go to lab. My grades have gone up since I started doing all of this; when I was "enduring" labs and trying to study from Netter, my grades sucked. I guess it is partly the "See one, do one, teach one" philosophy that is helping the info to stick in my brain better.

I suppose it's all in what works best for you. I can see the advantages on having a prosected specimen, but there is no substitute for also actually doing the dissection yourself. IMO, the best method is to have a prosected cadaver to look at first, then to go and do your own dissection.

 

[LukeWhite]

I do wonder what is meant by plastinated...

SE,

Plastination's great...if you look in a Rohen's you'll see examples of excellent plastination. It's not so much for the sake of preservation as clarity...it's awfully tough to tell some of those nerves from arteries from veins, and plastination essentially color-codes things.

Some will argue that there's some advantage in seeing things their "natural" color, but once you've pumped a mortal coil full of formaldehyde, nothing looks natural. Red for arteries, blue for veins, green for lymph, etc., is dramatically helpful in understanding how everything's put together. When in the distant future the 3D version of Rohen comes out, we'll be all be able to use that, and will finally be able to stop the long and unseemly tradition of killing people for use in our anatomy labs.

 

[OrthoFixation]

. . . will finally be able to stop the long and unseemly tradition of killing people for use in our anatomy labs.

Funny, I never heard of live volunteers being killed for gross 😱 😕

If you don't dig in and get your hands dirty, you may be might timid when presented with a live patient needing your help on the inside. I guess that's OK for psychiatry.

 

[LukeWhite]

Funny, I never heard of live volunteers being killed for gross 😱 😕

If you don't dig in and get your hands dirty, you may be might timid when presented with a live patient needing your help on the inside. I guess that's OK for psychiatry.

Welcome to med school, red in tooth and claw.

As for live patients, there's something to be said for getting over one's squeamishness, but the blood-and-guts experience of a living person is so different from that of a cadaver that I doubt it does anyone much good. A few surgery shadowings would seem to have better effect, with less drudgery and more applicability.

 

[OrthoFixation]

You may have missed the sarcasm.

 

[Thousandth]

I'll have to agree that most of my learning isn't done durning lab hours, it's done after lab once the disection is done and I can actually see the structures. It is a huge waste of time to pick fat, and that is what we seem to do for the most part. I for one would really like to have a procested cadavir. In fact we have that half the time, because we have 2 lab groups per cadaver so one does something that the other only looks at. Now with that said I think there is some value in getting comfortable with touching, cutting, handling a cadaver. But as far as learning anatomy, give me a plastinated color coded one any day.

 

[deleted9493]

In undergrad I took a significant amount of anatomy. I ended up being a TA in the cadaver labs my junior year and ran a study lab as a tutor the year following. That being said, even in my undergrad I had opportunity to do significant amounts of human dissection...as well as learn from that which had already been cut up.

I enjoyed some aspects of dissecting (the intrigue of anomalies, seeing truly natural positioning of structures) and disliked considerably more. I remember hearing people say that "Only through dissection can you get an understanding for tissue layering and feel." That's a load of crapola. First of all, cutting a cadaver feels nothing like cutting a living body. Second of all, if you're a first time dissector and don't know what you're looking for, you're likely to destroy many of the important tissue structures you're looking for.

So, what will you have gained by dissecting? Well, you will have spent ~10hrs./week mutilating a body (that you're going to have to study from) and in the meantime, not really gained any insight into what it is like to deal with the tissues of the living. Mutilate?...you ask. Yes, even with the best dissector guide, you will inevitably misgauge and/or cut in haste/frustration repeatedly throughout the course of a semester.

I always learned more in prosected anatomy labs, always. Dissection, in my opinion, has a place in medical schools--as an elective. Right now, would not be beneficial for me to be up in lab peeling off clingy chunks of fat from a cadaver (which is what I would be spending the majority of my time doing, were I dissecting).

 

[misyel]

I don't know, I guess each one has their own learning style... as for me, I'm partly a kinetic learner, and digging out the structures myself forces me to look at the atlas over and over, and I tend to learn, at least theoretically, where each structure is supposed to be in relation to everything faster than I normally do if someone else has done the dissection and were just pointing out the structures to me. I think dissection is a rite of passage, especially the pelvis... now, that's fun stuff!

I don't know about y'allz, but I love dissecting! =)

 

[raptor5]

I don't know, I guess each one has their own learning style... as for me, I'm partly a kinetic learner, and digging out the structures myself forces me to look at the atlas over and over, and I tend to learn, at least theoretically, where each structure is supposed to be in relation to everything faster than I normally do if someone else has done the dissection and were just pointing out the structures to me. I think dissection is a rite of passage, especially the pelvis... now, that's fun stuff!

I don't know about y'allz, but I love dissecting! =)

I agree 100%

 

[mcandy]

Curious...How many prosected cadavers are available for a given section...say head and neck?

I find having 35 cadavers dissected in different (some good some bad) ways to be excellent study tools. Having to put together a puzzle based on the bodies anomalies and the missing _________ nerve (hacked off by rogue scalpel stroke) and the extra artery coming off the _________ trunk has greatly improved my knowledge of anatomy. Yes I cursed (loudly) when thrashing threw heavy neck fascia attempting to find ansa cervicalis, but understanding variations and layers was well worth the quarters in the swear jar. I study our prosections too. Our fellows are very good about having several whole subjects and little tidbits (joints or hemisected heads etc) for us to study from as well. I see things very clearly there, but learn much more when I have to put things in their proper places and orient myself. I also recognize that understanding the relationships and differences in a bunch of different bodies is much more important than a clean "textbook" specimen aimed at allowing straight memorization...that is what rohen is for.
Just my opinion...figured I needed to defend the dissecting minority in this thread.

and yes, there is nothing quite like extracting the testicle from the scrotum and cutting it in half....UMMM rocky mountain oysters

 

[Fin-Nor]

...and yes, there is nothing quite like extracting the testicle from the scrotum and cutting it in half....UMMM rocky mountain oysters

my female partners eagerly volunteered for that portion of dissection. i couldnt deny them of the fun...

 

[Ice-1]

Dissection is a learned skill like any other, and if you haven't had alot of prior experience with it it can be frustrating at the start of first year anatomy. But if you do it your skill will improve! I've been a TA and tutor at my med school and can tell you that anatomy is all about relationships and that you should use as many different tools as possible to get it down. If your school uses only prosections then try to get some dissecting experience, but also use the models, Rohen, internet, etc. Each time you use a different tool, you see the anatomical relationships in a different light which helps the learning process. I'm on a rotation now in the medical examiner's office and am darned sure glad that I got to dissect in anatomy lab first!

 

[daveyboy]

Do you feel that you might have missed out on a vital part of medical school? Dissection of a cadaver really seems to be an initiation, a rite of passage. The drudgery being a portion of that.
Also, I have heard from many students that the structures that they worked on, those that took the most work to find and learn, were the ones they knew best. That they then presented those to their "cadaver-mates" and had that experience as well as reviewing that structure again the next session. Granted, you are thoroughly learning one half of the material, but the other half is available by attending lab each time or studying by yourself, as you would otherwise. Am I correct in these observations? I am extrapolating a bit.

Do either of you who have already answered (thank you by the way), or anyone else who happens upon this thread, feel that you would or are missing out on this experience by using prosected cadavers?

There is a real chance that I may have felt like I was missing out on a rite of passage, but it would be because I didn't know any better.
If you end up at MSU and still want to experience dissecting a cadaver, you can always find a morgue that will let you spend a few days as a deiner. IMO, this is a more meaningful experience.

 

[DrDad]

my thougts...

At OSU-COM we dissect 12 bodies with 2 groups to each body totalling 8 people, whereas we also have to prosected bodies that we utilize also,... in some ways the best of both worlds... Dissecting is advantageous if you learn how to use it, but it is an extreme hindrance if you are one of the closet learners that just Stuff it down...

best of luck

DrDad

 

[subtle1epiphany]

Thanks to all who posted! 😀

I'm less concerned about prosection-based learning, especially since MSUCOM does give the chance to dissect later on in the curriculum. 👍

 

[deleted9493]

That's the whole deal, subtle. Dissecting after you know the anatomy is a completely different story (e.g. take a dissection elective after having had prosected anatomy).

I really enjoyed dissecting once I had a solid foundation in anatomy and new what I was looking for. Before that point you're digging through stuff not really having a clear idea what end result you're going for...and things inevitably get botched or end incompleted (instructors have to go through and finish the job!).

At the end of the day, I think one stands to gain the most by chasing a prosected anatomy down with a dissection course.

 

[DOtobe]

I had a blast in anatomy lab (I had two awesome lab partners) so I didn't mind dissecting. I actually learned more when I dissected than when we had to look at prosected specimens. I think digging out the structures myself helped me learn them better.

But I was glad when anatomy was over 👍

 

[OSUdoc08]

I had a blast in anatomy lab (I had two awesome lab partners) so I didn't mind dissecting. I actually learned more when I dissected than when we had to look at prosected specimens. I think digging out the structures myself helped me learn them better.

But I was glad when anatomy was over 👍

I always do well on the portions I dissect, and have no clue to the portions I don't.
👍

 

[Robz]

when you spend hours cleaning the fat of some menentary....you get to know that structure. I feel there is NO subsitute for actually cutting and prodding.

 

[OrthoFixation]

when you spend hours cleaning the fat of some menentary....you get to know that structure. I feel there is NO subsitute for actually cutting and prodding.

That said, you have been OK with the NSU 10 student per cadaver rotating team lineup? I know prosections will be much cleaner, but I tend to learn best by doing. I've wondered about this, but our student guides said it was fine.

 

[gioia]

Curious...How many prosected cadavers are available for a given section...say head and neck?

I find having 35 cadavers dissected in different (some good some bad) ways to be excellent study tools. Having to put together a puzzle based on the bodies anomalies and the missing _________ nerve (hacked off by rogue scalpel stroke) and the extra artery coming off the _________ trunk has greatly improved my knowledge of anatomy. Yes I cursed (loudly) when thrashing threw heavy neck fascia attempting to find ansa cervicalis, but understanding variations and layers was well worth the quarters in the swear jar. I study our prosections too. Our fellows are very good about having several whole subjects and little tidbits (joints or hemisected heads etc) for us to study from as well. I see things very clearly there, but learn much more when I have to put things in their proper places and orient myself. I also recognize that understanding the relationships and differences in a bunch of different bodies is much more important than a clean "textbook" specimen aimed at allowing straight memorization...that is what rohen is for.
Just my opinion...figured I needed to defend the dissecting minority in this thread.

and yes, there is nothing quite like extracting the testicle from the scrotum and cutting it in half....UMMM rocky mountain oysters

Wow MCANDY,

So that was you screaming blasphemies in lab? I never woulda thunk it. 😉

I like reading the cause of death and then trying to find remnants of it in the cadaver.

Dissections are great but I don't believe in just sending knowlegeless MS1s into a dissection armed with little more than Grant's Dissector. In my ideal Anatomy lab there would be a dissection preview from an instructor. LUKEWHITE saved me on that one with the website link...

There is also the satisfaction of exploration. However, half of my lab partners would disagree....

 

[mcandy]

Dear DR WHO-OPHILE (aka joy), did you finish the ear dissection yet? I think it is very important that you realize that the ear is not a passageway to the brain or a means of doing neuro exams with an otoscope.

 

[gioia]

Dear DR WHO-OPHILE (aka joy), did you finish the ear dissection yet? I think it is very important that you realize that the ear is not a passageway to the brain or a means of doing neuro exams with an otoscope.

Eh hem, Auricularly speaking, you better be nice.... my cadaver knows where your cadaver sleeps at night!!!! 😱

Hey, aren't you supposed to be studying??? 🙂