Matthan - Anatomy: A Crash Course

The true foundation of medicine (and, by extension, all healthcare professions), anatomy is the most concrete of all the sciences healthcare students will encounter in their learning journey. Dissecting the human body used to be a requirement for all medical students in previous times. Today, financial constraints, lack of qualified staff, limited access to donated bodies, and the requirement for complex and cumbersome equipment to embalm and preserve them (as well as stringent regulations around body donations) mean that numerous institutions around the world have cut down foundational anatomy teaching for students. Moreover, where it does happen, instead of full-body dissections, other tools are increasingly utilized, with technology now a significant factor in how the subject is taught. The internet is rife with anatomy video clips and tutorials detailing the secrets of the human body for anyone keen to learn. Countless software applications for smartphones and computers are available to further enhance their knowledge. Digital and paper anatomy textbooks, exquisitely illustrated atlases, lifelike plastic models, virtual reality glasses, and all manner of additional equipment are also competing for attention in anatomy curricula.

Still, the general public and healthcare students (as well as numerous clinicians and anatomists) remain firmly convinced that there is no replacement for learning anatomy from donated bodies. Among other things, none of the other approaches allow the student to learn and appreciate the differences in the human body due to age and sexor to experience the range of common anatomical variants they are likely to encounter in the course of their clinical careers. Instead of requiring students to dissect, many institutions now produce pre-dissected material available for learning. These prosections, as they are called, may be embalmed or plastinated (longer-lasting). Surgeons may train on fresh-frozen bodies donated specifically for this purpose, as these are more realistic for learning procedures. Access to donated bodies to dissect or learn anatomy from through prosections is still a valuable experience for students, not solely for the tactile feedback they get from direct handling of body tissues and perceptions of depth that can only really be appreciated with a hands-on approach, but as a rite of passage and a formative experience in learning how to be professional and sensitive when faced with death and dying, the bread and butter of most healthcare professions.