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if you're a registered user (registration is free!) of latimes.com check this article out (front page, Sat 2.28.04):
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-anatomy28feb28,1,762445.story?coll=la-home-headlines
it's too long to post all of it but i'll post some excerpts...
COLUMN ONE
Cutting Out the Cadaver
Dissecting human bodies in medical school anatomy labs, long a gruesome rite of passage for doctors, is going the way of house calls.
By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO ? The anatomy teacher propped up half a human pelvis on the lab bench and swiveled it to give the seven medical students a different view. The chemically preserved specimen, expertly dissected, was fitted with color-coded wire tabs that identified the neatly displayed parts.
The students at UC San Francisco stood a respectful distance away. They took notes. They wore street clothes. And, unlike past generations of medical students who spent months dissecting cadavers, they did not touch the pelvis.
It's a lot more efficient than "bushwhacking your way through the body," said one student, 29-year-old Sydney Sawyer.
For nearly a century, the dissection of human cadavers has been a dreaded and honored rite of passage for budding doctors.
But over the last two decades, the field has lost prominence at medical schools ? the victim of overly packed curriculums, a shortage of teachers and a general sense that dissection is an antiquated chore in a high-tech world.
Most medical schools have scaled back the time students spend in the anatomy lab to give them more time to study molecular biology or genetics. A few have eliminated dissection as a requirement for being a doctor. When UCSF, one of the top medical schools in the nation, did away with the requirement two years ago, it sent shudders through the field of anatomy.
The future is moving toward ready-to-view, professionally dissected specimens (known as "prosections") that allow students to scoot in and out of class with a minimum of mess, and computer simulations that do away with cadavers entirely.
.....
"We've been dumbing down medical students, anatomywise, for the last 20 years," complained Robert Trelease, who teaches anatomy at the UCLA School of Medicine.
Arthur Dalley, head of anatomy at Vanderbilt University, which has firmly defied the trend, said some young doctors are so uncomfortable with the vagaries of the human anatomy that they have come to rely more on instruments and tests than their hands to conduct routine physical examinations.
"I think it's heartbreaking," he said.
The decision at UCSF to eliminate the dissection requirement two years ago has reverberated through medical schools nationwide. Anatomists say they feel increasing pressure from administrators to condense dissection.
.....
Increasingly, there are fewer people to champion dissection's cause.
Few academics are willing to dedicate themselves to teaching an ancient field when university careers are increasingly driven by cutting-edge research.
The luminaries on campus these days are working in immunology, cancer and genetics.
"Training in anatomy pulls you out of the research lab," said Rick Drake, who heads pure prosection anatomy training for MD and PhD candidates at Case Western Reserve University. "Nowadays, to get promotion and tenure, you need to be doing research."
In a 2002 survey by the American Assn. of Anatomists, 83% of department heads who responded said they would have great or moderate difficulty in finding qualified new teachers over the next five years.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-anatomy28feb28,1,762445.story?coll=la-home-headlines
it's too long to post all of it but i'll post some excerpts...
COLUMN ONE
Cutting Out the Cadaver
Dissecting human bodies in medical school anatomy labs, long a gruesome rite of passage for doctors, is going the way of house calls.
By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO ? The anatomy teacher propped up half a human pelvis on the lab bench and swiveled it to give the seven medical students a different view. The chemically preserved specimen, expertly dissected, was fitted with color-coded wire tabs that identified the neatly displayed parts.
The students at UC San Francisco stood a respectful distance away. They took notes. They wore street clothes. And, unlike past generations of medical students who spent months dissecting cadavers, they did not touch the pelvis.
It's a lot more efficient than "bushwhacking your way through the body," said one student, 29-year-old Sydney Sawyer.
For nearly a century, the dissection of human cadavers has been a dreaded and honored rite of passage for budding doctors.
But over the last two decades, the field has lost prominence at medical schools ? the victim of overly packed curriculums, a shortage of teachers and a general sense that dissection is an antiquated chore in a high-tech world.
Most medical schools have scaled back the time students spend in the anatomy lab to give them more time to study molecular biology or genetics. A few have eliminated dissection as a requirement for being a doctor. When UCSF, one of the top medical schools in the nation, did away with the requirement two years ago, it sent shudders through the field of anatomy.
The future is moving toward ready-to-view, professionally dissected specimens (known as "prosections") that allow students to scoot in and out of class with a minimum of mess, and computer simulations that do away with cadavers entirely.
.....
"We've been dumbing down medical students, anatomywise, for the last 20 years," complained Robert Trelease, who teaches anatomy at the UCLA School of Medicine.
Arthur Dalley, head of anatomy at Vanderbilt University, which has firmly defied the trend, said some young doctors are so uncomfortable with the vagaries of the human anatomy that they have come to rely more on instruments and tests than their hands to conduct routine physical examinations.
"I think it's heartbreaking," he said.
The decision at UCSF to eliminate the dissection requirement two years ago has reverberated through medical schools nationwide. Anatomists say they feel increasing pressure from administrators to condense dissection.
.....
Increasingly, there are fewer people to champion dissection's cause.
Few academics are willing to dedicate themselves to teaching an ancient field when university careers are increasingly driven by cutting-edge research.
The luminaries on campus these days are working in immunology, cancer and genetics.
"Training in anatomy pulls you out of the research lab," said Rick Drake, who heads pure prosection anatomy training for MD and PhD candidates at Case Western Reserve University. "Nowadays, to get promotion and tenure, you need to be doing research."
In a 2002 survey by the American Assn. of Anatomists, 83% of department heads who responded said they would have great or moderate difficulty in finding qualified new teachers over the next five years.
