How to decrease the emotional impact of cadaver dissection in medical students

ABSTRACT

Teaching anatomy is based on cadaver dissection. Working with cadavers, whether through active dissection or by examination of prosected specimens, constitutes a potential stressor in medical education. To reduce the anxiety of the medical students by mentally preparing them before going to the dissection room. The questionnaires were distributed among 68 medical students. The pre-dissection questionnaire comprised questions related to demographic data and the first encounter with a cadaver. The students were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was prepared psychologically prior to dissection, but the control group entered the dissection room without any preparation. After the first dissection class, all students were surveyed by the second questionnaire which surveyed physical and cognitive symptoms of anxiety, resulting from exposure to the dissection room at the first visit and six weeks later. There was a significant difference [p<.05] in the rate of anxiety between experimental and control group in the initial visit. The difference in the rate of anxiety between the first exposure and six weeks later was significant in control group [p<.008], while it was not significant in the experimental group. The initial preparation could relatively reduce the rate of stress, so that the experimental group experienced less emotional effects during dissection compared to control group