Preparing Students Emotionally for the Human Dissection Experience

An Insight into Professional Identity Formation: Qualitative Analyses of Two Reflection Interventions During the Dissection Course

“…Anatomy education has a tremendously powerful environment at hand to teach professionalism in the dissection course (Lachman and Pawlina, ; Swartz, ; Ghosh and Kumar, ). However, it is not enough to rely on professional values seeping unaided into student brains (Netterstrøm and Kayser, ), without addressing emotional aspects, such as attitudes toward death, rendering adverse effects (Charlton et al, ); thus, confrontation with a body donor must be approached carefully (Böckers, ). As mentioned above, a “hidden curriculum” is not enough, as students have to become consciously aware of their values and beliefs to be able to reflect on their actions.…”

“…Several articles have discussed professional identity formation during the dissection course. However, these papers describe the historical perspective of professionalism training (Warner and Rizzolo, ; Pawlina, ), the theory behind professionalism (Lachman and Pawlina, ; Slotnick and Hilton, ), the curricular implications (Escobar‐Poni and Poni, ; Swartz, ), quantitative data on student activity during dissection (Winkelmann et al, ), quantitative data on attitude change or reflective capacity (Camp et al, ; Pearson and Hoagland, ; Spampinato et al, ), or distress and coping strategies (Böckers, ; Sandor et al, ). One qualitative study reports on students’ perceptions and the covert learning outcomes of dissection (Lempp, ), but in this curricular program professional identity formation or reflective practice was not taught with an explicit teaching intervention.…”

Anxiety, emotions, and thoughts of veterinary medicine students during their first visit to the dissection room

“…To overcome the disruptive effects on the learning process, several interventions before, during and even after the dissection course have been recommended to reduce anxiety (reviewed by Ref. [27]). However, while in medicine and other health sciences these aspects have been extensively studied, whether students in veterinary medicine have similar experiences when facing cadavers during practical sessions has never been specifically evaluated, and only one study has addressed some aspects of veterinary students' attitudes when using cadavers.…”

“…Evaluating the effects of confronting canine cadavers in practical anatomy sessions on students can help establish strategies to reduce anxiety and improve student learning, as has already been shown for other health science disciplines. 1,27,[31][32][33][34]…”

Anatomy as a Model Environment for Acquiring Professional Competencies in Medicine: Experiences at Harvard Medical School

“…Plans for future evaluative studies will profit from experiences gained during the first two iterations of the model introduction, during which several foci for future work have been identified. These include: Level of support for students: Understanding how to identify specifically sensitized students and provide effective support for them; differentiating individual support from support needed for all students (individual precautions versus universal precautions; on preparing students emotionally for the anatomical dissection see Böckers, 2015). Collaboration with existing student groups for peer support, strengthen peer‐teacher role and function, for example, by introducing the role of student “co‐captain” who collaborates with faculty room “captain” (Raoof et al, 2001; Boeckers and Boeckers, 2016; Shiozawa et al, 2016; McBride and Drake, 2018).…”