Poll: Would you rather have a prosected cadaver in gross anat. or dissect it yourself

[gujuDoc]

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Hey everyone:

The other day I went to a presentation about LECOM Bradenton DO school, and they were emphasizing the prosected cadavers that made their anatomy course only 10 weeks long. They also mentioned how PBL made it lesser too. Then they said other schools typically have it 19-25+ weeks.

Then the other night I was on SDN in the allo area, just browsing around and noticed several threads about gross anatomy and how long different schools have their anatomy class and other such discussions on gross anatomy.

So this had me pondering.........would you rather have someone else (a professional anatomist) dissect your cadaver so you can have anatomy in less weeks??? Or would you rather have the ability to dissect it yourself and spread out over more weeks????

 

[Nikki2002]

yeah--how about someone else do that for me.....thanks!

 

[DrBowtie]

Both have their pros. Already prosected ensures that you will be able to find the important structures but I am looking forward to making my first incision.

 

[63768]

only lazy people want a prosected cadaver. jk!

seriously though, i wanna cut and find everything myself. it may take a little longer but then i'll know where to expect everything when i cut into my first live human. i really don't see the pros to a prosected cadaver.

 

[QofQuimica]

I think it would be ideal to have both, actually. Prosected because the pro knows what he's doing, whereas I don't, and that way I'd actually see the structures I'm supposed to see. Dissected because I learn better by doing. Why does the whole world have to be so dichotomous, Guju? 🙄 I want gray.

 

[DOCTORSAIB]

Hey everyone:

The other day I went to a presentation about LECOM Bradenton DO school, and they were emphasizing the prosected cadavers that made their anatomy course only 10 weeks long. They also mentioned how PBL made it lesser too. Then they said other schools typically have it 19-25+ weeks.

Then the other night I was on SDN in the allo area, just browsing around and noticed several threads about gross anatomy and how long different schools have their anatomy class and other such discussions on gross anatomy.

So this had me pondering.........would you rather have someone else (a professional anatomist) dissect your cadaver so you can have anatomy in less weeks??? Or would you rather have the ability to dissect it yourself and spread out over more weeks????

If I had to take anatomy over again, I would definetly want prosected cadavers. You spend 4+ hours digging through fascia only to find that you already cut the nerve/artery you were supposed to find. Such a waste of time in my mind. But to each their own.

 

[Law2Doc]

If I had to take anatomy over again, I would definetly want prosected cadavers. You spend 4+ hours digging through fascia only to find that you already cut the nerve/artery you were supposed to find. Such a waste of time in my mind. But to each their own.

I disagree -- you learn a ton of stuff doing the dissection. And you usually tend to remember the names of all the structures you accidently destroy, to the dismay of your lab mates. 🙂 You also get a sense of toughness/delicateness and thin/thickness of structures during dissection that you really can't otherwise. Sure, it might not always be the most time efficient learning, as DoctorSaib suggests, but there really isn't another way to get the same kind of hands on learning, and some things just stick in your mind better when you manually mangle them.

 

[Bigbreath]

I like the prosected one......I used to have a regular cadaver until that dirty ***** named Katrina swept in and re-killed my cadaver. Power off, 100+ heat indoors= bad sight. We now have a few prosected cadavers. I think having prosected ones is a high-yield way of studying w/o having to spend extra hours picking fat and fascia out. Of course, I don't have a choice in the matter, but I have worked with both, so have something with which to base my opinion.

 

[Law2Doc]

I like the prosected one......I used to have a regular cadaver until that dirty ***** named Katrina swept in and re-killed my cadaver. Power off, 100+ heat indoors= bad sight. We now have a few prosected cadavers. I think having prosected ones is a high-yield way of studying w/o having to spend extra hours picking fat and fascia out. Of course, I don't have a choice in the matter, but I have worked with both, so have something with which to base my opinion.

High yield does not equal better, though it may help you do well in a particular test. A lot of med school is less about the specific info you must learn and more about the experiences. I suspect when you look back on it all a few years from now, you will recall far more about the regular cadaver than the prosected one.

 

[Bigbreath]

Well.....I didn't have a choice in the matter. I had already dissected the back, chest, and arm down to the hand. I was saving the hand for a 4 hour lab session that I had on monday. Friday night Katrina decided to head more west...towards NO. I had already had enough of picking the fat. I did enjoy the lab time and was looking forward to getting inside the chest b/c my cad. had some sort of thorasic surgery (sternum wired). I really wanted to investigate that. Oh well.

 

[CuddlyKumquat]

dissect it myself. I learn easier that way and I figure that if I were to do surgery, no one is gonna go cut up my patient for me.
😛 😛

 

[Suppuration]

We had traditional dissection for all but head and neck, when we had a ton of prosected specimens. There was no comparison, prosection won hands down. It's tough enough to commit it all to memory when you have perfect specimens to muse over. Throw in all the BS associated with hacking up an embalmed body like a bunch of rank amateurs and you've got a good recipe for inefficient learning. The only value of dissection (that will last any length of time) is its standard as a rite of passage. It's also a good way to bond with your classmates, and hopefully get some nookie.

 

[Suppuration]

High yield does not equal better, though it may help you do well in a particular test. A lot of med school is less about the specific info you must learn and more about the experiences. I suspect when you look back on it all a few years from now, you will recall far more about the regular cadaver than the prosected one.

Eh, I recall some details of my cadaver, such as the calcifications on his diaphragm, but I still had a better handle on the prosected material. I could spend my mornings actually learning rather than hunting for some structure, buried in fat, that nobody in the group could recognize if their life depended on it. Screw that.

The theme of gross anatomy is confusion. If you had 40 weeks and three cadavers dissection would be the way to go, but that's just not the case.

 

[Bigbreath]

Supperation....you nailed it. Now we are going to school in Baton Rouge. We have on 3 hour lab a week at the LSU Vet school ( funny sight...vet students dissectiong dogs...right next to us checking out heart and lungs). I think 1/2 the vet students showed up for our first lab at the vet school....they were oh-ing and awe-ing. The prosected Heart and lungs were great to learn from....anatomy phDs did prosections.

By the way.......dissecting a cadaver does not parallel surgery at all!

 

[Law2Doc]

Eh, I recall some details of my cadaver, such as the calcifications on his diaphragm, but I still had a better handle on the prosected material. I could spend my mornings actually learning rather than hunting for some structure, buried in fat, that nobody in the group could recognize if their life depended on it. Screw that.

The theme of gross anatomy is confusion. If you had 40 weeks and three cadavers dissection would be the way to go, but that's just not the case.

Again, I think getting the handle on the material is not so much the point of anatomy in the long run as the experience. On point - If you look today at the allo board, you will see a discussion of how anatomy is a deemphasized course which is barely even on the boards, so you are clearly not expected to remember all that much of the specifics for purposes other than your particular exams. Thus it is less important that you are able to point to a cleanly dissected body part on a prosection and identify it- I continue to believe that You get more out of the experience of the digging in the long run, and possibly make school friendships that last a lifetime.
(And again, I think you get less sense of toughness, delicateness etc. -- all that untestable stuff -- if you don't actually cut.)

 

[gujuDoc]

Supperation....you nailed it. Now we are going to school in Baton Rouge. We have on 3 hour lab a week at the LSU Vet school ( funny sight...vet students dissectiong dogs...right next to us checking out heart and lungs). I think 1/2 the vet students showed up for our first lab at the vet school....they were oh-ing and awe-ing. The prosected Heart and lungs were great to learn from....anatomy phDs did prosections.

By the way.......dissecting a cadaver does not parallel surgery at all!

Thanks for the responses. Originally I voted for dissecting myself, but you and the other med students are making me rethink my vote.

I was curious to see how people learned better, because until LECOM, I didn't even know they had schools that did such a thing.

I think at LECOM, they said that they have an elective you could do in 4th year if you are interested in surgery........where you dissect a cadaver with an anatomist who is skilled in doing so, that you can learn how to prepare one yourself.

 

[Wiggy73]

Toughness and delicateness can be very different in a cadaver vs. in a live patient. In cadavers, layers stick together that separate easily in surgery, everything is rigid that's normally elastic, and fat has hardened so that it's really hard to get out of the way. So I don't think that's as big a deal as you might think.

I think both methods have benefits. It's helpful to dissect yourself so you see how to feel and access a particular structure, but if all you care about is seeing and identifying stuff then prosection's the way to go.

 

[Law2Doc]

Toughness and delicateness can be very different in a cadaver vs. in a live patient. In cadavers, layers stick together that separate easily in surgery, everything is rigid that's normally elastic, and fat has hardened so that it's really hard to get out of the way. So I don't think that's as big a deal as you might think.

That's a fair point. I'm sure that's true for a lot of structures, and will depend a lot on how recently your cadaver died and how well it was preserved (future patients will have variability as well -- some ill people will have less elasticticity and more hardened things), but I think you still do get a sense of how tough things like dura, facia lata, retinaculae, etc. are by dulling a scalpel blade on them, and how fragile something like the minor nerves/arteries are by accidently nicking them off -- something better to do in lab then in a procedure down the road. It also doesn't hurt to get used to looking at and identifying things in less than perfect cuts - a lot of the prosections will be too perfect and pristine.

 

[gujuDoc]

Wiggy,

You bring up a good point. I recall going to see a medical tour of MUSC in fall 2003. It was during AMSA regional conference.

Anyhow, they showed the premeds the cadavers and all the tissue looked hardened and the skin seemed more rubbery then like it is in living humans. Around the same time I volunteered in a medical research lab where we dissected recently deceased rats. Granted I'm comparing a rat to a human, fresh tissue was soooooooo much easier to cut through then dead tissue.

In things like anatomy labs, tissue is always preserved with sooooooo many chemicals that the toughness of it changes in relation to how it is in the living or recently deceased prior to preservation.

 

[Suppuration]

That's a fair point. I'm sure that's true for a lot of structures, and will depend a lot on how recently your cadaver died and how well it was preserved (future patients will have variability as well -- some ill people will have less elasticticity and more hardened things), but I think you still do get a sense of how tough things like dura, facia lata, retinaculae, etc. are by dulling a scalpel blade on them, and how fragile something like the minor nerves/arteries are by accidently nicking them off -- something better to do in lab then in a procedure down the road. It also doesn't hurt to get used to looking at and identifying things in less than perfect cuts - a lot of the prosections will be too perfect and pristine.

The embalming process makes any useful comparison between cutting a cadaver vs. cutting a patient essentially useless. Besides, by the time anyone allows/expects you to do any cutting on anyone live, you will be so far removed from gross anatomy that dissection vs. prosection won't matter one iota. Scalpels aren't even really used very much anymore. Trust me, when the attending hands you the Bovie on your first day of your surgery Sub-I, all bets are off. You'll just be praying that the quick review you did of the relevant anatomy will be adequate.

If anyone really feels that gross anatomy dissection will enhance their skills as a future surgeon, it would be infinitely more helpful (and realistic) to dissect freshly dead animals. And no, I'm not kidding.

 

[gujuDoc]

The embalming process makes any useful comparison between cutting a cadaver vs. cutting a patient essentially useless. Besides, by the time anyone allows/expects you to do any cutting on anyone live, you will be so far removed from gross anatomy that dissection vs. prosection won't matter one iota. Scalpels aren't even really used very much anymore. Trust me, when the attending hands you the Bovie on your first day of your surgery Sub-I, all bets are off. You'll just be praying that the quick review you did of the relevant anatomy will be adequate.

If anyone really feels that gross anatomy dissection will enhance their skills as a future surgeon, it would be infinitely more helpful (and realistic) to dissect freshly dead animals. And no, I'm not kidding.

Agreed with you. see my post above.

Having had experience dissecting a recently sacked rat and also having had the experience of dissecting preserved cats, pigs, etc. in anatomy and bio 2 lab, I can say there was a huge difference!!!!

The recently killed rat was not preserved, so you could still see the heart beating, cut through the skin much more easily, fill the lungs with some liquid and see it inflate before taking a section. A friend of mine worked in the same lab and did some surgical kind of stuff on the rat brains, and it was soooooo much more realistic then anything a person does in a class like anatomy lab.

 

[QofQuimica]

Agreed with you. see my post above.

Having had experience dissecting a recently sacked rat and also having had the experience of dissecting preserved cats, pigs, etc. in anatomy and bio 2 lab, I can say there was a huge difference!!!!

The recently killed rat was not preserved, so you could still see the heart beating, cut through the skin much more easily, fill the lungs with some liquid and see it inflate before taking a section. A friend of mine worked in the same lab and did some surgical kind of stuff on the rat brains, and it was soooooo much more realistic then anything a person does in a class like anatomy lab.

All I can say, after reading this whole thread, is that I will never be a surgeon, nor will I perform research on rats. I felt guilty enough 10+ years ago about killing a sea urchin in freshman bio lab and a frog for neurobio lab. Let's just hope I survive anatomy lab, and leave it at that.

 

[Law2Doc]

All I can say, after reading this whole thread, is that I will never be a surgeon, nor will I perform research on rats. I felt guilty enough 10+ years ago about killing a sea urchin in freshman bio lab and a frog for neurobio lab. Let's just hope I survive anatomy lab, and leave it at that.

Anatomy is nothing to feel guilty about -- the deceased you work on generally have donated themselves. You only need to feel guilty if you let them down and don't learn something.

 

[QofQuimica]

Anatomy is nothing to feel guilty about -- the deceased you work on generally have donated themselves. You only need to feel guilty if you let them down and don't learn something.

Yes, I know, and many schools even have ceremonies to thank the donors for their generosity and remind the students that these were once living people, which I really admire. I'm mostly being tongue-in-cheek here; I don't think I'll have a problem getting through anatomy class. I never felt as bad about dissecting specimens that were preserved. I made it through the fetal pig and the cat with no problem, and ours was even pregnant. 😱 BUT, they hardly seem like they were alive at all. It's a lot different than cutting into something that is still warm....sort of like, if you go buy a package of plastic-wrapped boneless chicken from the grocery store, it is hard to imagine the living chicken that was killed to give that meat. But if you go to a farm, catch the chicken, wring its neck yourself, well, that's a bit different, isn't it? 😳

 

[Pretty POHA]

I can't wait to dissect one myself!
I used to have the mantra "I don't do dead stuff," but I've become fascinated by the human body!

Once the person has died, it's not "them" anymore. It's a cadaver or a carcass. Kind of like when you make a kill while hunting... after you've killed it, it's the animal's carcass, not the animal itself.
Yay cadavers!

 

[dajimmers]

I took a dumbed-down undergraduate lab where we saw prosected specimens. I'm hoping to be able to do disection in med school. I think I'll learn it better moving through piece-by-piece from the outside in, at least to learn the relations everything has to everything else.

But, the presection lab was good because they had plenty of interesting sections (ex: cleaved down the middle between the eyes, so you can see the brain, nasal cavity, esophagus and trachea, all the way down to the intestines and genitals). Also, many of the cuts were far better than I can see myself doing.

I think it would be best to have both, to some degree. Usually there's a few students per body, so you don't have to do all the cutting. Having lots of experienced TAs would also help. And then if there are a few bodies disected by the anatomist, to help guide the day's goals and show a "pristine" example, you'll get the best of both worlds.

 

[dopaminophile]

There's definitely no substitute for doing it yourself. Dissection of a cadaver isn't about "the experience" or practicing surgery. It's all about learning the physical relationships and discovering them yourself. You'll know the brachial plexus far better if you've spent 5 hours on a saturday night plucking every branch, cord, and trunk free of fascia. We just took our first anatomy exam and when the practical exam came around, everyone knew the stuff that they dissected with their own hands far better than the stuff we saw in prosections or even that others in our group dissected. There's just no substitute for following an artery along it's course, seeing the different anastamoses, and feeling them yourself. Usually medical schools will have a few cadavers that the pro's dissected, which helps in the sense that medical students are amazing proficient at destroying structures (dare I say supraclavicular nerves?) That way, if everyone screws the structure up, they can still see it. I realize this is the third time I'm saying it... but there's just no substitute for dissection. This isn't to mention that you also get a really good understanding of how different each individual's anatomy is. Believe me, I'd love it if I didn't have to spend as much time in the lab as I do... but the fact of the matter is that this is one of the most important classes we'll ever take... and cadaveric dissection is the best way to get a handle on the material.

On a completely unnecessary note... the point about texture is pretty irrelevent. While texture and consistency are important when you're in surgery, they aren't the point of cadaveric dissection. The entire point is to see physical relationships of structures, not examples of living tissue. We'll all see plenty of that later.

Good luck with your apps all! It's worth it.

-dope-

 

[QofQuimica]

dope, I've missed you. Welcome back to pre-allo. Unfortunately, the search is disabled, so I can't bring up the limerick thread. 🙁

 

[MeowMix]

You'll know the brachial plexus far better if you've spent 5 hours on a saturday night plucking every branch, cord, and trunk free of fascia.

Perhaps. Unfortunately, short-term memory will be your undoing, and by this time next year you will probably not remember any branch, cord, or trunk - just the mnemonic (RTDCB). Sorry.

 

[jackets5]

I want to be an orthopod. so give me a scalpal and let me get to cutting. hell, it was awesome to cut the pig in gen bio

 

[Darth Asclepius]

There's definitely no substitute for doing it yourself. Dissection of a cadaver isn't about "the experience" or practicing surgery. It's all about learning the physical relationships and discovering them yourself. You'll know the brachial plexus far better if you've spent 5 hours on a saturday night plucking every branch, cord, and trunk free of fascia. We just took our first anatomy exam and when the practical exam came around, everyone knew the stuff that they dissected with their own hands far better than the stuff we saw in prosections or even that others in our group dissected. There's just no substitute for following an artery along it's course, seeing the different anastamoses, and feeling them yourself. Usually medical schools will have a few cadavers that the pro's dissected, which helps in the sense that medical students are amazing proficient at destroying structures (dare I say supraclavicular nerves?) That way, if everyone screws the structure up, they can still see it. I realize this is the third time I'm saying it... but there's just no substitute for dissection. This isn't to mention that you also get a really good understanding of how different each individual's anatomy is. Believe me, I'd love it if I didn't have to spend as much time in the lab as I do... but the fact of the matter is that this is one of the most important classes we'll ever take... and cadaveric dissection is the best way to get a handle on the material.

On a completely unnecessary note... the point about texture is pretty irrelevent. While texture and consistency are important when you're in surgery, they aren't the point of cadaveric dissection. The entire point is to see physical relationships of structures, not examples of living tissue. We'll all see plenty of that later.

Good luck with your apps all! It's worth it.

-dope-

I agree with this. My anatomy class had both. If I had to do it again, I would want to do the dissection myself. There are times when it is tedious, but you can do things with your cadaver that you probably can't with prosections (I found them extremely helpful because the structures are easy to see, but you usually can't touch them because you might mess them up). It's helpful to be able to move around the intestines to look around, to follow vessels or nerves through their course, to put your finger in between different organs and see how they relate to each other spatially. I don't think you get as good of a grasp of this if you can't get in there, move stuff around, and touch things. If they let you do this with prosections, that's great, but I doubt you'll have that kind of freedom. I also think actually dissecting a cadaver with your fellow students is a valuable experience. I think a lot of people matured a lot as a result of having to deal with the cadaver.

 

[Hoberto]

I would rather have prosected for many of the reasons stated here. Also I'd be worried that I'd get some hack happy partner who'd screw up our body and our chance to really see the structures and whatnot.

I think some schools have prosected with disection as an elective later on. I think this might be a nice option. If you were all gung-ho about dissection it might be easier to dissect with a bit more knowledge of anatomy behind you after having the prosected class.

 

[dopaminophile]

dope, I've missed you. Welcome back to pre-allo. Unfortunately, the search is disabled, so I can't bring up the limerick thread. 🙁

I've missed Q's lims and her rhymin,
As much as her crazy good timin'.
This place ain't the same
Sans a limerick game
So Pre-Meds stand up and chime in!

Hey Q... it's been a while since I've posted on here much. Med school is unbelievably busy... especially now that we're in anatomy all the time. I hope all is going well with applications and that you're keeping your head squarely on your shoulders through all that mess. The application game is certainly no fun, but it'll be well worth the work. I've never been happier!

Good luck to all!

-dope-

 

[unoriginal]

ok, so how many of you people have ever actually done dissection? dissection is fun for about the first week, then after that it is a waste of time. why spend 3 hours dissecting when you can learn the structures in 30 mins on a prosection? i think these results would be a little different in allo forums..

 

[Darth Asclepius]

ok, so how many of you people have ever actually done dissection? dissection is fun for about the first week, then after that it is a waste of time. why spend 3 hours dissecting when you can learn the structures in 30 mins on a prosection? i think these results would be a little different in allo forums..

I mostly enjoyed the dissections I did. There were times when it seemed tedious, but I think the overall benefit was worth it. That being said, I think some people strongly dislike dissection and probably would disagree. I think that having both is best because you get the benefits of both (clarity of the prosections and ability to really get your hands in there and move stuff around to really master the spatial relationships in the cadaver). Also, if you don't so much care about that (and many people don't) and just want to be able to ID a tagged structure on a practical, prosections would be fine. If you want a better understanding of the relationships, I thought dissection was very helpful.

 

[synapse lapse]

ok, so how many of you people have ever actually done dissection? dissection is fun for about the first week, then after that it is a waste of time. why spend 3 hours dissecting when you can learn the structures in 30 mins on a prosection? i think these results would be a little different in allo forums..

Eh, I still enjoy dissecting. Sure it can be tedious, but it is still interesting. I agree with the people here (dopa and law2doc I think) who say dissection is the preffered method. of course your school should have prosections too. And hoberto, don't worry about your tank mates screwing you up, that's why you have 2 sides it's pretty hard for both sides to screw up the same structures if theyre working together. Anatomy rocks, and I think will be the most enjoyable class of first year, though i may be proven wrong.

 

[Hoberto]

ok, so how many of you people have ever actually done dissection? dissection is fun for about the first week, then after that it is a waste of time. why spend 3 hours dissecting when you can learn the structures in 30 mins on a prosection? i think these results would be a little different in allo forums..

We did only a shoulder and elbow and just like you said...the initial excitement wore off fast.

 

[Suppuration]

We did only a shoulder and elbow and just like you said...the initial excitement wore off fast.

Before I took gross anatomy, I myself had this idea that dissection would be instructive. In reality, 98% of the learning happens after the cutting is done, when you review your cadaver (and others) ad nauseum. Dissection just becomes this pain in the arse thing you bumble through each day.

 

[Hoberto]

Before I took gross anatomy, I myself had this idea that dissection would be instructive. In reality, 98% of the learning happens after the cutting is done, when you review your cadaver (and others) ad nauseum. Dissection just becomes this pain in the arse thing you bumble through each day.

That's my take.

 

[Arsenic]

dissect it myself. I learn easier that way and I figure that if I were to do surgery, no one is gonna go cut up my patient for me.
😛 😛

thats what we all thought before anatomy started but after a couple of weeks of scooping out fat from the thighs with your own hands and peeling away a ton on fascia around the nerves and blood vessels you start to think differently. now in my 2nd year of med school most of the people in my class wished we had prosected cadavers.

anatomy dissections are just very low yield, you'll put in hours of work to identify just a few structures.

ok, so you've spent 2 hours digging through the gluteal region and you've identified the tendon of obturator internus. great. now, tell me everything about its blood supply, innervation, actions, and any clinical correlates, etc... those are the type of questions you'll get on your exams.

when you're learning all that stuff you wish you had back some of that time that you had spent digging through all the fat and fascia.

 

[Arsenic]

Before I took gross anatomy, I myself had this idea that dissection would be instructive. In reality, 98% of the learning happens after the cutting is done, when you review your cadaver (and others) ad nauseum. Dissection just becomes this pain in the arse thing you bumble through each day.

definitely 👍

 

[Em1]

In my AP bio class in high school we went on a field trip to a cadaver lab. It was pretty interesting, the cadavers had already been partially dissected and the prof showing them to us was experienced in dealing w/people who have never seen them. Only one person fainted.

On the way back, my teacher said cadavers never bothered her, until she saw a relatively young female cadaver (20's-30's) that still had fingernail polish on. That would freak me out too.

 

[Arsenic]

On the way back, my teacher said cadavers never bothered her, until she saw a relatively young female cadaver (20's-30's) that still had fingernail polish on. That would freak me out too.

You'll see that in med school, I've seen a couple of the female cadavers with fingernail polish on. I've even seen two with their medical alert bracelets still on with their names and disease, etc... 😱

When we were going through the thorax last year, one group even found a 6 inch hemostat from the OR in a cadavers chest. We had a doctor that was there going over radiology with us who told us that if the patient had coded while in the OR the atmosphere would have been so hectic that after she died they would have just missed it in the blood within her chest before they closed her up for the funeral home. Crazy.