86 - Exploring Non-medical Attendees’ Perceptions on Cadaveric Dissection Workshops Enabled Through a Unique Body Donation

Poster Board Number: 86
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : Cadaveric dissections are highly regarded as a teaching aid within anatomical education. Due to a number of reasons including cadaver scarcity, cadaveric education is mostly limited to medical students.

In the United Kingdom, body donations can be accepted for anatomical examination under the ‘Anatomy’ license regulated by the Human Tissue Authority. This is usually restricted to medical and other healthcare students. For human bodies, body parts and specimens to be displayed to the wider public, the donor has to specifically consent to ‘Public Display’. For the first time in the UK, Brighton and Sussex Medical School received a donor who had consented to both ‘Anatomy’ and ‘Public Display’. Furthermore, the donor had also waived their anonymity and consented to images and videos. A unique set of cadaveric dissection workshops (n=12) was offered to a wide range of non-medical students from the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, and local NHS trusts.

The donor was a 30-year-old female who died from the metastatic spread of an adenocarcinoma of the lacrimal gland. Each workshop included information about the donor’s history including symptoms and diagnosis, radiological images taken before and after the donor’s death, live dissections carried out by anatomists and clinicians, discussion of the donor’s spread of cancer, and the link between the donor’s symptoms and structural changes identified during the live dissection. These were some of the novel aspects of these workshops. A specific body region of the donor was dissected in each workshop. An online questionnaire was disseminated and by the end of the survey period, data had been collected from 47 attendees.

Attendees were asked to indicate if this is the first time, they were attending a session of this kind. Out of those who responded to this item, 85% said that they were attending for the first time. Nearly 60% of respondents reported that they were anxious about seeing inside a deceased body. However, out of this population, only 24% reported that there were times during the session where they had to look away. Amongst the respondents (n=41) who indicated that they attended these workshops to further their knowledge of the human body, a majority of them felt more informed about the human body (93%) and the health condition (80%) after attending the workshops. Overall, 70% of respondents wanted to find out more information about body donation after attending their session. Out of this, approximately 36% belonged to the age group of 18-24 years.

Taken together, these results highlight the value of cadaveric dissections to non-medical students. The live dissections coupled with the opportunity to know more about the donor and their clinical condition provided an ideal platform for attendees who despite being anxious, were able to gain knowledge about the human body and cancer. The workshops also sparked an interest in knowing more about body donation, even amongst the younger attendees. In conclusion, these workshops enabled by a unique body donation paves the way to generate a new debate about opening the dissection room to non-traditional audiences particularly when it’s in the public interest to provide education about conditions such as cancer.