gross anatomy

[kimt2234]

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so, how can one prepare to work on dead people? I have serious anxiety/vomiting issues and I won't start med school for a few more years but am wondering how one can maybe build up a tolerance.

 

[Tribeca]

so, how can one prepare to work on dead people? I have serious anxiety/vomiting issues and I won't start med school for a few more years but am wondering how one can maybe build up a tolerance.

Mine's a little different, I'm not scared of blood, but am very uneasy around open wounds, lacerations, and watching the doctors stich them up. My husband always makes me watch those episodes on Discovery Health, especially "Dr. G: Medical Examiner" (i think that's the title) and forces me to look. I find myself watching the shows progressively covering my eyes less and with less anxiety. Hope this helps.

 

[Dominion]

I have found a VERY cool place to 'toughen' myself up for anatomy in the future, as that's my concern as well 🙂

First off the site right now is 100% free, and I think it's a great source for pre-meds, med students, and people who've gone through med school.

http://www.or-live.com

They do live streaming video of surgery of a bunch of different specialities.

Other than that tons of discovery health.

And if you wanna really test how far along you've come, watch a Gastric Bypass.

 

[njbmd]

so, how can one prepare to work on dead people? I have serious anxiety/vomiting issues and I won't start med school for a few more years but am wondering how one can maybe build up a tolerance.

Hi there,
There is something about working to find structures and knowing that you are going to be graded that takes away the anxiety. Gross Anatomy is very much like dissecting a cat (fetal pig) or anything else that has been preserved in formalin. The formalin smell can be overpowering if your school does not have good ventilation.

The human cadaver is not totally uncovered at one time. You generally work on one small area at a time. Like I said above, you HAVE to identify structures so you have a focus.

It is unlikely that you are going to have to build-up a tolerance. The need not to fail Gross Anatomy generally outweighs any nerves very quickly. In my class, we didn't lose a single person.

njbmd 🙂

 

[Law2Doc]

so, how can one prepare to work on dead people? I have serious anxiety/vomiting issues and I won't start med school for a few more years but am wondering how one can maybe build up a tolerance.

Unless you have a friend who works in the morgue, I doubt you can find a way to get yourself desensitized -- it's something you just get past by doing. By the end of the course it won't even bother you and you will leave the lab hungry and even order lunch meat that looks quite similar to what you have been workin on, without being phased. Everyone is apprehensive, but very few people lose their lunch. Most places start with the face and hands covered up for the first few weeks, so that it looks less like a person.

 

[JimmyG]

I, like you, had no idea what to expect before taking Gross. I was very fortunate that in my occupational therapy program, we we able to take Gross Anatomy (our FIRST class of the program..it initiates you into the program...) Our professor spent much of the first lab explaining the legal contract the cadaver's families had with the medical school (who gave us the cadavers) and how we needed to respect those bodies because they were a donation to science. He was able to give us a very limited H&P about each cadaver (i.e. age of death, active/nonactive). He then explained how we were to use them for education but to understand that within 6-7 months, the bodies were to be given back to the medical school so that they could be cremated and the ashes given back to the families.

Good tips to remember: (1) Have a lab coat that you keep only in the lab to prevent any formaldehyde/fluid/tissue from getting on your clothing. (2) Have a reference Anatomy book that you keep in the lab because you will be flipping pages with messy, gloved hands and you don't want to take home to study from at night. (3) Vicks Vaporub was very useful to many of my classmates to keep the formaldehyde smell from irritating them during the long labs. Just rub a little on your upper lip before lab starts and you smell menthol the whole lab...

The first day was scary when we first saw the bodies, but, yes, their heads are covered (until you begin dissection of the face and brain). Within a day or two, that apprehension wears off and you understand the amazing experience you have to fully learn from a human who has so selflessly given their body for your education. It was by far the most educational, interesting class I have ever taken. We had cadavers that had tatoos, obese people and skinny, and a man who had had a quadruple bypass (very interesting to compare with the people who did not have artery grafting!) This will be your once in a lifetime chance to learn everything you wanted to learn from a human body so endulge yourself in it. I, myself, am excited that if I am to become a doctor, that I will get to experience that class once again.

 

[CaveatLector]

This may seem strange but will work. Go on a walk down the street the next time you see roadkill. Poke at it with a stick and move it around. Then, every time after that that you see more road kill do a little more and then more. Examine its wounds, peel back the skin with a stick, try and see its guts, etc. Pretty soon you'll be putting them on a slab in your backyard and cutting into them and doing a quickie autopsy to see exactly why they died (as far as a layperson can tell anyway). Seems gross huh? So is cutting into a human so get used to it.

 

[Law2Doc]

This may seem strange but will work. Go on a walk down the street the next time you see roadkill. Poke at it with a stick and move it around. Then, every time after that that you see more road kill do a little more and then more. Examine its wounds, peel back the skin with a stick, try and see its guts, etc. Pretty soon you'll be putting them on a slab in your backyard and cutting into them and doing a quickie autopsy to see exactly why they died (as far as a layperson can tell anyway). Seems gross huh? So is cutting into a human so get used to it.

Except that you cannot catch a contageon from a cadaver, but you certainly can from roadkill. I'm hoping this poster is joking. Not a good idea unless you want to end up with rabies, salmonella, or (if you're really unlucky) the plague.

 

[CaveatLector]

Yeah bubonic plague!
I guess I better qualify the post. Don't actually EAT the animal or squirt its innards in your eye or into open wounds. And wear protective clothing/gloves/mask.
I had a friend in high school who used to cut the heads off road kill and clean the meat off the skulls. Then he would soak the skull in bleach, dry it, and display it on his shelf. He had like 50 and he's still alive and well more than 10 years later. Chances of catching something is pretty slim.

 

[njbmd]

Yeah bubonic plague!
I guess I better qualify the post. Don't actually EAT the animal or squirt its innards in your eye or into open wounds. And wear protective clothing/gloves/mask.
I had a friend in high school who used to cut the heads off road kill and clean the meat off the skulls. Then he would soak the skull in bleach, dry it, and display it on his shelf. He had like 50 and he's still alive and well more than 10 years later. Chances of catching something is pretty slim.

Hi there,
And you friend's name was Jeffrey Dahmer... Hmmm...

njbmd 🙂

 

[Beau Geste]

Yeah bubonic plague!
I guess I better qualify the post. Don't actually EAT the animal or squirt its innards in your eye or into open wounds. And wear protective clothing/gloves/mask.
I had a friend in high school who used to cut the heads off road kill and clean the meat off the skulls. Then he would soak the skull in bleach, dry it, and display it on his shelf. He had like 50 and he's still alive and well more than 10 years later. Chances of catching something is pretty slim.

fleas can trasmit the plague, too, fyi.

Your friend sounds creepy. I hope you aren't his best friend. 😱

Anyway, try to shadow a surgeon or that live or site is pretty cool.

You'll get over it. If not, maybe you can go into administration.

 

[kimmcauliffe]

Wow... I can honestly say that I am pretty creeped out by some of the posts on this forum... 👎

I like the OR Live thing... Honestly though, it's mind over matter, my friend. In the meantime, I'd watch a lot of surgery shows on TLC and Discovery if you can. Pretty soon, it will turn from gross to amazing.

 

[Jaguar]

Here is a link that might be useful. Click on the Dissection Video button on the left hand side, then choose the dissection you want to watch.

The smell... well, it's just something that you eventually get somewhat used to after enough hours in the dissection lab. 😳

 

[Jaguar]

Here is a link that might be useful. Click on the Dissection Video button on the left hand side, then choose the dissection you want to watch.

The smell... well, it's just something that you eventually get somewhat used to after enough hours in the dissection lab. 😳

http://anatomy.med.umich.edu/courseinfo/learning_materials.html

 

[Pretty POHA]

The idea of dissecting a cadaver sounds fun and interesting. In A&P this semester, I have to dissect a cat. This includes skinning it. I am not very pleased about it. I could easily dissect a cat post-skinning because then it'd not look like a cat. But to dissect a cat that I have to skin?!
Blech!
(am I weird because the cadaver part doesn't bother me?)

 

[Beau Geste]

The idea of dissecting a cadaver sounds fun and interesting. In A&P this semester, I have to dissect a cat. This includes skinning it. I am not very pleased about it. I could easily dissect a cat post-skinning because then it'd not look like a cat. But to dissect a cat that I have to skin?!
Blech!
(am I weird because the cadaver part doesn't bother me?)

Naw, that's not weird. Most people think cats are cute, and it kind of makes you feel like you took a hand in the "death" part for the cat when you skin it. When it looks less like the lovable animal, you can dissociate yourself from it and use it as a learning tool.

We're going to be using cats and human cadavers too in our A&P lab. After looking at the human cadaver's body and face, I started to feel really bad about opening this person up. After the face was covered and organs revealed, I got caught up in how super cool the human body is!

 

[kimmcauliffe]

After the face was covered and organs revealed, I got caught up in how super cool the human body is!

I've always wondered about this- I think it goes along with my disdain towards being a plastic surgeon, too. The association, for me personally, is the body's face- you can tell a lot about a person by it, I've learned.

Maybe my cadaver will come without a head. And all of my patients, too. 😱

 

[bubbleyum]

This may seem strange but will work. Go on a walk down the street the next time you see roadkill. Poke at it with a stick and move it around. Then, every time after that that you see more road kill do a little more and then more. Examine its wounds, peel back the skin with a stick, try and see its guts, etc. Pretty soon you'll be putting them on a slab in your backyard and cutting into them and doing a quickie autopsy to see exactly why they died (as far as a layperson can tell anyway). Seems gross huh? So is cutting into a human so get used to it.

please don't tell me that you actually do this.

 

[opstandzon]

Loyola has great resources on anatomy, including recordings of dissections:

http://www.meddean.luc.edu/lumen/meded/grossanatomy/index.htm

I like to watch the Discovery Health shows too!

 

[oldManDO2009]

We are finally working on the head and neck and njbmd is correct - it remains covered most of the year. I personally was very grateful for the donation because I get to learn in a time honored fashion - and I think it helps us become better doctors.

I can't think of any disrespectful behavior towards the cadavers - some joking but it relieves stress. I would not sweat the dissection part of med school - there are more stressful events than anatomy - mostly in our school hell week when we have 9-11 exams - much more stressful! 😱

Good luck

 

[Dominion]

I really like the dissection video links posted. I noticed someone somewhere said get a mask, when I first read it I envisioned one of those dual filtered breating masks. Although you would look extremely funny, I imagine they would filter all smells out 😛

 

[QuikClot]

Some schools are moving away from dissection towards prosection (pre-cut structures as a learning tool, as opposed to starting from the skin). What with that and other kinds of uncertainty, I wouldn't get too worked up in the anticipation of problems.

My personal feeling, having touched and handled many dead and dying people, is that there is nothing inherently distrubing about it. You quickly come to realize that the spirit or personality of the human being is no longer there, that the body is just an object and past all suffering.

If you find bodies distressing, I suggest that in the situation you focus on what you need to accomplish, and not take much (or any) time to ruminate on your feelings.

You will get through anatomy and the rest of medical school, and then discover that the real horrors of medicine are suffering people -- the families of the dying, people in terrible pain, COPDers circling the drain, demented patients who have lost their mind and memory -- their life.

Whew, depressing post. The point I am menandering towards is that compared to the living, dead patients are as intense and scary as a ticket to yesterday's lottery. You can't help or hurt them; so be chill.