Medical Student Perspectives on the Ethics of Body Donation and Dissection

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Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : Abstract title: Medical Student Perspectives on the Ethics of Body Donation and Dissection

Introduction and Objective

Anatomical donors play an invaluable role at the heart of medicine. Yet, the ethics of anatomical donation and the use of donors are not regularly taught in medical curricula. This study seeks to understand first-year medical student perspectives on the ethics of body donation and dissection in the cadaver lab.

Methods

This prospective cross-sectional cohort study of first year medical students entering Gross Anatomy included 12 Likert-scale questions, three multiple choice questions, and four yes/no questions. The survey was modeled after a validated instrument that surveyed European anatomists at the Joint Meeting of Anatomical Societies in 2011. The survey in our study was adapted to assess the student experience of human donor dissection. The survey was distributed to 350 first year medical students across 9 campuses via a student newsletter during the first week of medical school. Descriptive data were analyzed using SAS analytics software.

Results

A total of 72 students participated in the survey. Participants were mostly between 22 and 25 years of age (88.9%). Among the respondents, 44.4% identified as a man and 55.6% as a woman; 76.4% identified as white, 16.7% as Asian, 6.9% as Black, and 93.1% as Non-Hispanic or Non-Latino.

Most respondents agree that donor dissection is instrumental: for professional training (90.3%), to develop professional skills (72.2%), to learn empathy (63.9%), and to learn anatomy (93.1%). Less than half, (40.3%) of respondents agree that it is important to learn about who the donor was as a person, 69.4% agree that learning about who the donor was as a person is important to learn empathy. Over half of respondents (59.7%) agree that it is important to learn about where the donor came from. The majority of respondents agree that they would donate their organs to a sick patient (87.5%) while less than half (43%) agree that they would donate their body for human dissection.

Conclusion

Results from this study demonstrate important trends in student perspectives of the expectations of body donation and dissection before entering the cadaver lab. Medical students are entering medical school with the expectation that dissecting a human donor is an anatomical learning process more than an opportunity to express empathy. These results show that student’s do not want to learn about who the donor was as a person and are not anticipating the need to express empathy in the cadaver lab.

Significance and Implication

Students are not anticipating having to learn the human side of medicine in their first class of medical school. This expectation sets the tone for the rest of medical school which is that students come to school to learn clinical medicine.