In my knowledge, all the carib schools save St. Mat, and IUHS's essenatially "distance" med edu, use cadavers. Using them is simply well considered "standard" in med edu, so it is only those who consider themselves to have an articulated and pretty strong rationale who choose otherwise--it is only those who choose to go "off the beaten path" and, perhaps (but perhaps not) "innovate" who forego the cadavers.
Purely opinion wise (and/though most will roundly agree; and though this is not directed anywhere but "generally"), I think that
the more modalities you can use in learning anatomy, the better.
Possible applications of this assertion are:
-- Don't forego ADAM software, and don't forego a
systems based anatomy textbook, in addition to whichever regionally-based text is required by your school. Personally, I love ADAM, as well as, for example, the whole "Rediculously Simple" series (
CLICK HERE to find such titles) including the anatomy one (Ah! At last! Some excellent pedagogy!
--a relative rarity in med school).
--Use modalities related to your
hands, your
eyes, your
ears, as well as
relational [social], and
individualistic ones; and, just as importantly, in
various combinations of all five. This is, I think, so very key.
CLICK HERE TO SEE A REPLY TO A BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL ARTICLE where I argue this (though I
profoundly feel that experimentation with "distance" and other edu models should be carried out--who knows but that an excellent
result will come?)
On the other hand, St. Mat argues that the value of cadavers diminishes when the cadavers are not professionaly
prosected, which plastinated models essentially are, though, arguably "stylized." This is as opposed to the highly variable student
disections. (My opinion: good point, especially if practical exams must, for the very most part, be carried out upon student disections during a given semester).
Yet, the ideal med school might consider using, or at least well facilitating,
all possible modalities in their teaching (and testing) of anatomy (etc.), and
not choosing between and among them.
But, and either way, and as the sound adage (an adage with good merit) goes, and though this does not negate the need for excellent pedagogy,
your [the student's] initiative is a main thing. So I suppose we could say that, "any way you slice it," your initiative to learn, no matter where you are at school-wise, is a main thing
Add in:
And since I am kind of harping a bit on med edu here...let me just add here that I think it is needless, and perhaps irresponsible, and in any event less-than-desirable, in the overall scheme of things, for schools to squeeze anatomy into ONE semester.
Egypt, if I recall the exact details correctly, teaches anatomy over THREE YEARS of their seven year progam! Why have they chosen this? What is their rationale? Does it have good merit? Is it applicaple
to other med edu systems? How so? In what measure? (I would be eager to discuss these questions in this or another thread). Either way, med schools could at least teach anatomy over one year (one academic year, i.e., two semesters)...that is,
if they place pedagogy over budgets, or worse, over convenience, and allow the rest of the curriculum to be in kind. Also, does systems-based, overall, trump regional-based learning in anatomy?
If you can't tell already, and personally speaking, I think sound pedagogy is something med schools need to pay more attention to, though we are light years ahead of where we have been...and thank you to those who give a primary atention to this. And for those who perhaps don't in measure enough...simply put, there is a niche for you to develop more upon.
