Unveiling challenges in cadaveric dissection for medical education – a study of student perspectives

Introduction and aim. Cadaveric dissection is the mainstay of learning anatomy by medical students. Even though newer teaching learning methodologies have been implemented to facilitate learning anatomy, cadaveric dissection remains the most preferred method by students. The objective of this study was to analyze the student perspective of different aspects of learning anatomy with their positive and negative experiences and to get a better understanding of their opinions and their experience. Material and methods. In this cross-sectional study, a pretested and validated questionnaire was used to collect information from the students after approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Informed consent was obtained from every student prior to their participation in the study. Results. Three hundred seventy-seven students took part in this study and the response rate obtained was 63.5%. The majority of the students stated that cadaveric dissection has helped them in learning basic anatomy and had deepened their under standing of complexity of human body and has helped in better performance in clinical applications. The smell of formalde hyde and eye irritation was cited as the major reasons for finding dissection sessions challenging. Most of the students agreed that counselling before dissection sessions will help to alleviate the emotional reactions to cadavers. Conclusion. The students unanimously agreed that cadaveric dissection sessions are the best way to learn basic anatomy com plemented with newer teaching tools like prosection and computer-based approaches. However, the problems encountered by the students like smell and irritation of formaldehyde need to be addressed with usage of alternative techniques.