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What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

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Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#61

Post by the_af »

idiotsecant wrote: post #44
the_af wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother, when he attended his anatomy classes, told me the med students were very playful and joked all the time. A coping mechanism, perhaps? I think it's understandable, but respectful they were not. For example, they called one of the corpses "blondie"... and she was headless. Let that one sink in.

Interesting that the stories about disrespectful behavior are always a friend of a friend and not the medical students themselves. I suspect a majority of these second hand stories of casual disrespect are a combination of a game of telephone and unreliable narrative bluster from young medical students confronting their own mortality for possibly the first time in their lives. Every story from someone with direct exp…

No. This is first hand experience by my brother during anatomy classes. He was a student and one of the jokers, too. He said this behavior was pretty common, and he took part in it.

Disrespectful/joking behavior behind the scenes is not too rare with doctors, either. I have doctor friends who attest to this, as in, they engage in this behavior (so again, no game of telephone here). Never in front of the patient, since that would be rude and unacceptable, but privately with other physicians? You bet.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#62

Post by astrea »

> No wonder our feet have so many problems: they were once hands

Isn't this backwards? Or am I mistaken about human evolution? My understand was that our ancestors were not arboreal and walked on all fours then we adapted to walking upright. Therefore, feet became hands.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#63

Post by idiotsecant »

the_af wrote: post #61
idiotsecant wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the stories about disrespectful behavior are always a friend of a friend and not the medical students themselves. I suspect a majority of these second hand stories of casual disrespect are a combination of a game of telephone and unreliable narrative bluster from young medical students confronting their own mortality for possibly the first time in their lives. Every story from someone with direct exp…

No. This is first hand experience by my brother during anatomy classes. He was a student and one of the jokers, too. He said this behavior was pretty common, and he took part in it. Disrespectful/joking behavior behind the scenes is not too rare with doctors, either. I have doctor friends who attest to this, as in, they engage in this behavior (so again, no game of telephone here). Never in front of the patient, sinc…

You get that this is exactly the scenario I just described, right?

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#64

Post by at_a_remove »

This wasn't full on dissection but ... my father was dating a coroner, who really wanted me to go to med school. However, my father was also ridiculously squeamish, to the point where even a few drops of blood could result in a faint. So, she decided to take me to an autopsy she had to sign off on, to see if I was also as delicate. My father refused to even enter the building, but there I am, with my first cadaver, which was a suicide.

Local laws dictated that all bullet fragments be removed, and since it was a low-caliber bullet the man had fired into his head, it mostly bounced around in there. Originally, they had drilled a discreet hole and were trying to get everything out that way, but eventually had to do the full rectangle, with a Stryker autopsy saw.

Suffice to say that I do not have my father's squeamishness.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#65

Post by sergiotapia »

giardini wrote: post #58
whatshisface wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A soul is just a word for an individual human consciousness.

Yeah, just as with aspirin, I carry a few of those (i.e.,"souls") in my pocket for emergencies, e.g., in case I need to fend off Satan (an archaic term for an individual evil entity of great power) - I toss a fee on the sidewalk and skedaddle away while He (i.e., the Devil [caps for classicly-attributed respect of his overweening spiritual powers]) devours them.

I tip my fedora to you kind gentlesir.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#66

Post by msrenee »

kendallpark wrote: post #40
danielheath wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most discussions involving cadavers are quite respectful of the fact that they are working on the mortal remains of a person Not that I know first-hand, but that's not the impression I got from the med students when I was at uni. People find all sorts of odd ways to cope with their own mortality, and getting reminded of it tends to bring those to the fore.

Speaking from first-hand, I can't remember any disrespectful behavior. Acting disrespectful toward the donor (what we called the cadavers) would get you kicked out of anatomy lab. There is even a "gift of body" ceremony commemorating the donations every year that family members can attend. Med students will speak about how the donors impacted their medical education and how much they appreciate them. I would hope tha…

The comment you're replying to is talking about discussion of the experience (hopefully after the fact). I don't think that they're claiming the bodies are being disrespectfully handled. I'm assuming they're talking about the black humor people use to cope with being surrounded by illness and death.

Mom's a nurse, so it never struck me as odd or mean-spirited. It finally dawned on me when she cracked a joke in response to a question grandma asked about a work story mom was telling at a family get-together. It went over grandma's head, thankfully. It was a pretty good pun, but I think that was the first time I realized that not everyone is used to that sort of talk.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#67

Post by the_af »

idiotsecant wrote: post #63
the_af wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is first hand experience by my brother during anatomy classes. He was a student and one of the jokers, too. He said this behavior was pretty common, and he took part in it. Disrespectful/joking behavior behind the scenes is not too rare with doctors, either. I have doctor friends who attest to this, as in, they engage in this behavior (so again, no game of telephone here). Never in front of the patient, sinc…

You get that this is exactly the scenario I just described, right?

No, how? To you maybe it is (as would ANY anecdote here not directly related by an anatomy student -- and maybe not even then, because what proof do you have that they are telling the truth?), but to me it's not: I spoke with the student directly, and with the doctors in my second example; in both cases, the person I was talking to was directly engaged in the behavior. So not "a friend of a friend".

You are justified in being skeptical, but unfortunately you're not going to find the evidence you seek on HN. By definition, the written word here is not going to be proof enough. If the topic interests you enough, I guess you'll have to speak to doctors and students directly?

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#68

Post by bongwater_OS »

ohwellhere wrote: post #32
codingdave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't seem to be doing this to pursue anything other than personal curiosity. And fairly light-hearted curiosity at that -- the tone of the article, to me, sounds more like, "Ooh, nerves are neat!" than someone trying to build a body of knowledge for a larger purpose. I'm not going to go so far to say that only med students should have access to cadavers... but this article does feel like a rando just cutting so…

It's funny how differently people can read things, and how different contexts color our impressions. On most topics, this community mostly values pursuing personal curiosity even if it's not for a larger purpose. We never know where we will find larger purposes, after all! And following interest and desire is generally a valued habit. I didn't get the impression they were a rando "cutting someone up for fun" (note "s…

I had the same impression from the article, and I'm glad you brought up the value of pursuing personal curiosity.

This brings up a central question about the value of collective vs individual knowledge. If you donated your body, would you rather help a lot of people a little or a few people a lot?

If I knew that my body had the power to bring about a truly humbling, enriching, and perspective changing experience to a few individuals, I would be happy with that. In an indirect way, it might be so inspiring for those individuals as to result in a net gain of collective knowledge in the future.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#69

Post by akiselev »

astrea wrote: post #62

> No wonder our feet have so many problems: they were once hands Isn't this backwards? Or am I mistaken about human evolution? My understand was that our ancestors were not arboreal and walked on all fours then we adapted to walking upright. Therefore, feet became hands.

That is some overt bipedalism there :)

Many (most?) monkeys like chimpanzees have opposable thumbs on their “feet” so they’re more like a second pair of hands, which get exercised as such by gripping tree branches. Humans, on the other hand, keep their bottom hands in rigid clothing so they never get any real exercise.

Re: What it’s like to dissect a cadaver

#70

Post by davikr »

the_af wrote: post #16
danielheath wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most discussions involving cadavers are quite respectful of the fact that they are working on the mortal remains of a person Not that I know first-hand, but that's not the impression I got from the med students when I was at uni. People find all sorts of odd ways to cope with their own mortality, and getting reminded of it tends to bring those to the fore.

My brother, when he attended his anatomy classes, told me the med students were very playful and joked all the time. A coping mechanism, perhaps? I think it's understandable, but respectful they were not. For example, they called one of the corpses "blondie"... and she was headless. Let that one sink in.

Respect to the cadaver was teached in our first dissection class and not even once any incident like that happened. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of disrespect coming from veterinary students, which brought me some disgust.
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