PERCEPTIONS OF CADAVERIC DISSECTION IN ANATOMY TEACHING
Abstract
Background: Anatomy professors world over are lamenting about medical students’ lack of interest indissections and its diminishing utilisation in medical studies. The objective of our study was to find outthe reasons why some of the Pakistani medical students were avoiding dissections. Method: Weconducted this study in 5 medical colleges of Pakistan from Dec 2010–Oct 2011. Questionnaires wereprepared and administered to more than 500 Pakistani medical students, at least 6 months after theirfirst cadaver dissecting session. Mostly 1st and 2nd year medical students participated in this study.Result: Around 43% students have actually performed dissections in some form, whereas around 57%had never touched the cadaver. Further evaluation of these results revealed that out of 57% of students,45% avoided dissection due to bad smell of formaldehyde, 37% due to moral/ethical grounds, 22% dueto low motivation and respect of human body, 19.4% due to anxiety, 18.6% due to religious reason,16% due to fear, asthma and emotional reaction, 9.4% due to toxic chemical, 8.6% due to laziness and7% due to nightmares. Conclusion: In spite of availability of required number of cadavers in all 5medical colleges and a clear realisation amongst the students that dissecting cadaver is an effective wayof learning anatomy; majority of students were not very keen and had therefore not performeddissection even once.Keywords: Anatomy, dissection, cadaver, questionnaire, medical student, formaldehydeReferences
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