Objectification, Desensitization, and Personification: Medical Student Strategies for Dealing with Human Body in the Anatomy Lab

Abstract

Introduction & Purpose Cadaver labs play a significant role in supporting learners form a professional attitude towards human body. Most medical students have their first authoritative encounter with human body in a cadaver lab where they get a right to manipulate and cut through the body. Dealing with death and dissection of the body may simply be a unique learning experience for some but it can be an emotional roller coaster for others. A few student strategies for dealing with cadaver bodies (such as objectification of the body) are documented in the literature but a full range of such strategies is rarely investigated. This study sought to understand the range of strategies medical students use for dealing with cadaver bodies in the anatomy lab at one medical school. Methods Twenty semi‐structured interviews and four focus groups were conducted with a total of 44 students from all four years of undergraduate medical education at Indiana University School of Medicine, in 2019. All sessions were audio‐recorded and later transcribed verbatim. A qualitative thematic analysis was performed by developing an inductive coding scheme which resulted in emergence of salient themes from the data. Results The full spectrum of student strategies for dealing with cadaver bodies included: 1) complete, effortless objectification of cadaver’s body as a non‐living thing, 2) actively desensitizing oneself toward cadaver’s body as so to be able to work with it, and 3) paralyzing personification of the cadaver’s body that impedes learning from it let alone dissecting it. Falling within this spectrum were also the so‐called middle ground strategies that were chosen by students attempting to adopt a more balanced behavior between desensitization and personification but still found themselves alternating between those two positions at certain times. Conclusion Students employ certain strategies for handling human body in the cadaver lab. These strategies are based on their personal values and/or actively chosen to help them make the most out of their experience working with cadavers in the anatomy lab. Significance/Implications Learning to deal with cadaver bodies in a professional manner is an impactful part of medical students’ professional identity formation process. The way students handle those bodies is likely to impact their attitude toward their patients’ bodies in the future as a doctor. Understanding the full range of student strategies for handling bodies in cadaver lab is a critical step for anatomy lab educators to facilitate a healthy, professional, ethical, and at the same time humane relationship between students and their cadaver’s body. Future studies should dig deeper into each of the strategies identified here and explore the best ways to oversee them for an effective medical professional identity formation in medical students.