<p>sk8rmom-the use or sharing of cadavers is school specific. When I was in school, PT had not moved to the doctorate level and PT/OT were in the same anatomy class and did share the cadavers. They were also used by the medical school. We dissected muscle/nerve, they (med students) did internal organs. They could examine the anatomical structure of the muscle/nerve/skeletal system and we could more closely examine the internal organs without the time consumed from the actual dissection. </p>
<p>OT is one of those professions with a lot of different directions. Some do move more toward the psychological or functional, some are very much nuts and bolts physical (think hand therapists).</p>
<p>Miami-
Your post #78 seems to conflict with post # 82. Your d is still an UG, correct?
I asked what dept offered the anatomy lab he is currently taking- its Biomedical Engineering.</p>
<p>I believe MiamiDAP is trying to say that her daughter has anatomy lab right now, but DOES NOT work on cadavers. But a lot of our students ARE working on cadavers, as undergrads.</p>
<p>My D is in her first semester of her BS Nursing program at Pitt. She has an anatomy class, they have a cadaver. I think it’s great – what better way to learn about human anatomy than to complement your book learning with the opportunity to see the real thing?</p>
<p>I guess some here are questioning whether or not 18 yr-olds are mature enough to work on a cadaver. These nursing students will be learning and practicing on live patients by this time next year…if they can’t handle the cadaver at this point, maybe they better reconsider their career options. </p>
<p>(True story…when we were touring the Nursing school at Pitt last year, the students and parents were offered the chance to view one of the cadavers. Every single prospective student – high school seniors, about 20 of them – accepted the offer. All were interested, all were respectful, no one reacted as if they were “grossed out”.)</p>
<p>DS worked on pig cadavers as a HS student. No, not the same thing, but vital for him. He discovered he loved suturing and began considering surgery.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, he has gone in a much different direction.</p>
<p>I found the cadavers we had in anatomy interesting, the live patients that I saw the following year not so much. In fact, that was when I knew I couldn’t handle it.</p>
<p>I’m a fourth year physical therapy student at Quinnipiac. First of all I find it ridiculous that you’re saying many of us have no experience with anatomy. Many of us took some sort of anatomy course in high school in which we dissected fetal pigs. Then sophomore year we took an anatomy and physiology course in which we dissected cats as well as observed already dissected cadavers. So entering our third year most of us were taking anatomy for a second, if not third time. Physical therapists need to have a keen understanding of not only the muscles of the human body but the structures they are attached too and the surrounding organs. PTs are experts on human motion, and in order to understand motion you need to know what causes that motion. People underestimate how much PTs actual know and are capable of doing. Just because we aren’t a medical doctor doesn’t mean we are any less qualified or less deserving of knowing exactly what we’re working with. Would you want someone working on you who had only ever seen what cat muscles look like, because not all of them are the same as those in humans. Also, in order to take the classes we take during grad school, gross anatomy needs to be taken in undergrad because it’s a building block course for many of the professional components of the program.</p>
<p>I think it’s inappropriate to use cadavers in a high school class. A class full of high school kids is not going to have the maturity to treat a cadaver with respect. (Individuals kids in the class might, but as a demographic group, no.) And is that really the best use of a body? A kid who is going to become an English teacher or accountant or actor doesn’t need to be dissecting a corpse and the five kids in the class who go on to become doctors . . . probably would have become doctors anyway. It’s not like “doctor” is some obscure profession no one’s heard of, that kids need to be “lured” into the profession.</p>
<p>Just give them fetal pigs and frogs, for heaven’s sake.</p>
<p>As far as college classes go, I think it just depends–depends on what the class is and what major it’s for.</p>
<p>Who said anything about human cadavers in HS?? We are talking about anatomy labs in college. Don’t think anyone said anything about human cadavers in HS.</p>
<p>Are you following sylvan? They talked about pigs and cats and such. Not humans. In HS its animals. In some undergrads (including my DS’s) its humans. The cadaver lab is in the basement below the health club at his university!!</p>
<p>** The article EK linked above is about an Honors Anatomy and physiology class for HS seniors at Wyoming HS in Ohio. They apparently do a lot of outside work, including observing the birth of babies at a nearby hospital, viewing photos of burn victims and
They go to the cadaver lab at the University. No human cadavers in HS labs that I see discussed anywhere here, sylvan. No need for a snarky comment, especially when you are wrong I am following along just fine. Hope you are too. I am off to have a morning cup of coffee. Come join me.</p>
<p>I think it was Toledo who said their AP Anatomy class gets a cadaver somehow. But, whether on or off premises, it did sound like the cadaver labs were part of the HS course for the others who mentioned it. </p>
<p>bhmomma, thanks for the explanation of how that works for PT/OT students. I’m glad to know it’s likely that the med school at her U will use the cadavers when D’s group are finished…kind of assumed it might work that way since the OT’s are only offered the course once a year, during the summer.</p>
<p>sk8rmom-
Post #62 is toledo’s reference to “somehow getting access to a cadaver” in their AP anatomy class. Gotta wonder if her kids went to Wyoming HS in Ohio (though its near Cincinnati, not Toledo-- is this a cool opportunity for HS students in Ohio??). I think that Seniors taking an AP anatomy class would be fortunate to go offsite to hospitals or med schools to have the opportunity to see human anatomy and physiology close up. I think its great!! I don’ think anyone is talking about a cadaver lab** IN** a HS. Thats how I read the above posts-- as if there were human cadaver labs in high schools, and there arent. Access to a college or med school lab is different, and again I thinks its great.</p>
<p>Are you following jym? Quite a few posters have mentioned the use of cadavers in high school anatomy courses.</p>
<p>To repeat- they don’t have human anatomy labs in any high school I know of.
At my daughters prep school, while they worked with Mary-Claire King a well known geneticist at the UW, they didn’t have * any* dissection classes that I remember, certainly not human anatomy.</p>
<p>Schools barely have chemistry labs anymore- too expensive & even at the university level, it is the students who are most interested who are taking anatomy.</p>
<p>The high school students who were able to learn from a university program, were carefully selected- it isn’t something that is available to many.</p>
<p>I am planning on giving my organs if possible after death, but haven’t decided about the rest- unlike what poor souls may be on tour with Bodyworks, those who are choosing to donate to a medical school are informed about their decision.</p>
Ain’t it the truth?
Thanks for clarifying too, EK. Its easy for all of us to read these posts differently. I read them as you did-- and agree that there are not human cadaver labs IN high schools. And I think you and toledo were the 2 who mentioned anything about HSers having some exposure to outside labs while in HS. Not sure I would consider this to be “quite a few” posters mentioning this, but thats just me.</p>
<p>When I was in college I visited a friend who was a first year med student. He took me to his cadaver lab to meet his cadaver. I also got a tour of the cadaver lab at the school’s med school when I was a first year grad student. The med students were a bit flip at times about their cadavers. Agree with whoever it was who said that sometimes people use humor to assuage discomfort. But in both the med school anatomy labs, there was some flippancy when it came to dealing with the cadavers. Not saying it was right-- just saying it happens.</p>
<p>My son is a junior at the University of Colorado and a biochemistry major. He wants to be a dentist, although medical school isn’t entirely out of the picture yet. As a college sophomore, second semester, he took Intro to Human Anatomy and the accompanying lab, where he did indeed work on cadavers all semester long. </p>
<p>He was only 19 at the time (turned 20 close to finals) and learned a tremendous amount about the human body - and about himself as to whether this really was something he wanted to do, career wise. After all, not everyone can handle “blood and guts”. I certainly can’t.</p>
<p>I guess absent the respect issue regarding how students treat the bodies, which is legitimate, I don’t see the big deal. I’d rather have ANY medical person who works on me or my family be very familiar with the human body, so I think exposure before medical school/dental school/whatever is just fine.</p>
<p>After all, contrary to the books you can buy at Barnes & Noble or Borders, veins are not red and arteries are not blue. It takes a considerable amount of practice to identify what’s what once you’re working in there.</p>
<p>From what my son said, it was a very hard class and lab, so the enrolled kids were there to LEARN, not to make fun of the cadavers. And that’s what they did. YMMV.</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore at a large CC and as a pre-req I had to take Human Anatomy w/lab. The lab incorporated the use of 2 cadavers almost every session. The class was 4 days per week and we used the cadaver at least twice in that time. </p>
<p>My major is Speech Pathology and Audiology.</p>
<p>So I’m not really sure how it comes as a surprise that an OT major, let alone an SP major, would work on a cadaver as an undergraduate.</p>
I am following along just fine. Hope you are too. I am off to have a morning cup of coffee. Come join me.</p>