<p>I was horrified when my friend told me that next year when her son is in his third year at Quinipiac as a physical therapy major he will be working on a cadaver. I just could not possibly understand why a third year anything would have such a need to work on the human body when they don’t even know what they are doing yet. Is anybody out there familiar with this school and this practice. When I heard this I just thought it was a waste of a special gift. He is in his second year now and is working on a cat…that makes sense but a human being just really irritates me.</p>
<p>He is in school for Physical Therapy, what could he possible do wrong practicing on a cadaver? He needs to learn on a human; a dead one will not be complaining!</p>
<p>In my son’s first year of medical school they worked with cadaver; very typical in the medical field.</p>
<p>My older D is studying exercise science/kinesiology and hoping to go on to DPT. Part of the degree is understanding the human body and how it works. While much can be drawn from textbooks, nothing takes the place of the cadaver lab. She is looking forward to it.
They are taught to be respectful and thoughtful when in the lab…certainly nothing to be horrified about.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand why you find this “so irritating.”</p>
<p>I am not disturbed by the idea of working with a human body but I do not see the need for a third year physical therapy student doing so. Medical school is a whole different thing and obviously I would expect this. What is gained by a third year student in physical therapy working on the human body? They have just barely covered anatomy and they are provided with a human body. The program is a seven year program so I could understand a 6th or 7th year student doing this but not someone who has no idea what the heck they are even doing yet.</p>
<p>Elon University also has a cadaver lab - they have only undergraduate degrees and a DPT program (no medical school, although they are starting a Phys Assist program).</p>
<p>Although a cadaver lab at the undergraduate level is unusual, it doesn’t strike me as a bad thing.</p>
<p>What better way to learn about the human body than with a human body? I am sure they are learning dissection techniques with the cats. That way when they get to humans, it will be more about what they are seeing and how it interconnects, rather than how to use their instruments effectively and navigate though interconnected tissues, peritoneum, and such.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine why this would be something to be “horrified” about. It’s part of the student’s course of study and that is that. When I took anatomy, we were very well taught about the respect for the bodies we were dealing with. This is part of most human anatomy/dissection courses. I agree, there is no better way to learn about the human body than by using a human body. Thank goodness there are folks who donate their bodies for research and study.</p>
<p>I’m more horrified that he’s working on cats. Why not fetal pigs? That’s what I used in college.</p>
<p>My son was looking at Marquette for a while, and their health science students worked on cadavers as well. It was quite a selling point that undergrads would be able to see if they could stand anatomy class before they got to med school.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like he is a lucky student. Nothing like the real thing to grasp the intricate workings of the human body. </p>
<p>My grandmother donated her body to Stanford after she died. Her gift taught many students about the human body that a 92 year old woman lives in.</p>
<p>And of course now our whole family takes pride in saying…“My grandma went to Stanford!”</p>
<p>back in the dark ages when I was an undergrad at UCSB with a major in anthropology, I took human anatomy and we worked on a human cadaver as a group and we each had our own cats that we dissected. I think the experience was amazing. It gave me a much deeper understanding of human anatomy than a text book ever could. </p>
<p>PT’s need to have an in depth knowledge of anatomy. So I’m not surprised that a 3rd year student would be looking at cadavers. </p>
<p>Ilovedcollege, what a wonderful story about your grandma going to Stanford.</p>
<p>When I have had PT (frozen shoulder, and also a couple of slow healing sports injuries), I have been amazed and impressed at how much the therapists knew about the human body. They REALLY have to understand anatomy to come up with the right combination of activities to heal you, and a good one can work wonders. I was a bit suspicious of PT when I was first sent, but am thrilled to have avoided surgery, cortisone shots, etc. to fix up my problems. If I donated my body to science, I would not feel belittled in any way to have a 3rd year PT student using my body to learn their trade.</p>
<p>Thinking about this, momma three’s reaction reminds me of an incident I had growing up. When I was in seventh grade, our class read “All’s Quiet on the Western Front” My father was outraged. He though that 13 year olds did not have the life experience to really understand and get the message out of a book like that. We had not experienced much of life, or anything of war and loss (my dad was a combat veteran). He seemed to feel that it was wasted on us, that we would not get it.</p>
<p>I get the feeling that momma three is having a similar reaction. She feels that a human body is a precious commodity - something that can only be treated appropriately and properly appreciated by students who have more experience and breadth of knowledge. That it is wasteful or disrespectful for a human body to be used in a more general class by those who may not know what they’re doing.</p>
<p>Way back in the dark ages when I was in college, Anatomy and Physiology was a junior year course for zoology majors and other pre-health-profession type people. Cadaver lab was required.<br>
I’m surprised that you are surprised.</p>
<p>Interesting issue.</p>
<p>I have a question. When people donate their bodies, are they donating them to a particular school or program? Or is there some kind of central clearing house between donors and colleges? </p>
<p>I think most of us who contemplate donating our bodies to science, are thinking more along the lines of medical students or medical research, not for undergraduate courses. Or at least it never occurred to me until now. If folks are donating their body and they or their families do not know exactly where it’s going, that would be a problem; on the other hand, if people are happy to give themselves up to an undergrad physical therapy class, I say wonderful! </p>
<p>I could envision donating my body to a medical school, but not an undergraduate college program. Call me a weirdo, but I teach undergrads for a living, I work with them everyday…the LAST thing I would want are my undergrads handling me or my loved ones dead bodies. There is a maturity factor. And there are lots of other ways kids can learn anatomy at the level they need it (outside of medical school), especially with today’s technology. And it’s a big selling point for colleges to market the fact that their undergrads get to use “real cadavers”. </p>
<p>Given the shortage of organ donations in this country, it seems a terrible waste of a very precious resource too. I will just hope these generous folks were unable to provide viable organs for donation.</p>
<p>When I was a soph. nursing student we practiced on live patients in the hospital.
Nothing like doing your first catherization with five other girls and an instructor watching.
Every single thing we learned to do was practiced on live patients.
Practicing/learning on cadavers doesn’t seem unusual for PT students to me.</p>
<p>when I was in massage school advanced anatomy was taught in a cadaver lab at John Bastyr college for Naturopathic Medicine.
This was actually a reason why I chose that school, because the level of instruction was higher ( I felt) than other schools.
It is very instructive to actually be able to see the attachments and insertions & it would be important for physical therapists as well- I actually think the benefit could have come earlier in the program and then gotten more advanced.
I also feel that students are quite reverential towards the gift that is being bestowed to them & it is an honor to be allowed to learn in this manner.</p>
<p>As a physical therapy student when the entry level degree was a BS I worked on a cadaver in my 3rd year undergrad which was 1st semester of the PT program. Having to learn every muscle with origin, insertions, nerve and blood supply, bones and joints ect it was an extremely valuable learning opportunity. I do clearly remember 1 student from our class of 28 walking out that first lab and never coming back which was amazing to me considering how hard it was to get accepted to these programs and the amount of volunteer experience and academic requirements to apply but I guess he didn’t realize he couldn’t handle this one lab.</p>
<p>I think we had cadavers in freshman or soph year anatomy. It was fantastic, something I will never forget. The rest of it, not so much, I switched to Econ.</p>
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<p>I would certainly be looking towards an Ivy or a tippy top LAC.</p>