At my school, the gross anatomy course lasts only 16 weeks - it's one of the first things we do, and is probably where we spend at least 50% of our time and energy for the first four months of medical school. This is faster than some. Many schools prefer a complete 'organ system' method, in which the gross anatomy of a given organ or system is paired with physiology, biochemistry and histology of that same system. This gives the students a whole view of each system - but means they grow more slowly to a whole body view. In our first semester we do the very small (general biochemistry) and the very large, which we follow with a more systemically organized view starting in the winter we do histology and physiology of each system at a time. However, first we spend four straight weeks on the neurological system. This is the only course I have taken that encompasses anatomy, histology and physiology all at once. It's all neuro, all the time, for four weeks. Importantly for this discussion while we, the students, do all the dissections in gross anatomy we do not dissect anything in neuro. We observe whole and sectioned brains prepared for us by the course staff, and use photographs and prepared slices to study the rest.
So. Why do medical students dissect at all? With programs like Zygote body, VH dissector (a program created by the Visible Human Project at the national library of medicine, the program is licensed, so you can't play with it, but we had access at school), some would argue that there's no need. And we're awful at it! You can imagine that 170 first year medical students, most with no dissecting experience at all, are going to do some damage while they work - particularly if they are working in time-pressured circumstances. The arguments for dissecting range from "it's the way I had to do it when I was in med school" to the slightly stronger "rite of passage" to the even more realistic: "real patients vary, you need to see real bodies to see variations." However, medicine gets more and more complex every year: remember that really it's only two years of classroom teaching to take us from bio minor undergrads to clinical students able to recognize normal human physiology, and anatomy and to understand pathologies (at least theoretically). So as time goes by, some schools have done away with hands on dissection - replacing it with prosection and guided reviews. In this model, more experienced dissectors (TA's) do the work, presenting students with an excellently dissected specimen that they then can talk through and the students can explore. Computer programs and pictorial textbooks can supplement. In other countries school go even further and students dissect whole cadaver models that are artificially synthesized.
So which method is preferable? Should we dissect everything ourselves? Learn only using computer programs and books? Try to encompass the best of both worlds with prosection and reviews? I'll express my opinion next week!
So which method is preferable? Should we dissect everything ourselves? Learn only using computer programs and books? Try to encompass the best of both worlds with prosection and reviews? I'll express my opinion next week!
