Studying Medicine or Dentistry

[Surgeon]

So I just wanted to ask you guys, what dissections do you do in medical or dental school?

Cadaver dissections?

What is the most confronting thing that one could expect in either of these courses?

Thanks

[Tomw2]

Apologies, I'm struggling to reconcile the title of this thread and the questions asked in the first post. Are you trying to decide between the two?

In any case, at UoM DDS we do not do cadaver dissections per se (at least not in the preclinical phase - later on in oral medicine & surgery it is possible). We examine preserved specimens, models and perform procedures on simulated tooth & jaw structures. We do a lot of virtual dissections etc. We do however perform exams and procedures on actual extracted teeth. Our radiology and radiography classes use actual skulls (dry bone) enclosed in a polymer casing.

What is the most confronting thing that one could expect in either of these courses?

Depends on what you find confronting. Most of the lay public would be quite disturbed by the idea of giving a local anaesthetic injection deep into the gingiva of your classmate and then receiving one from them in turn. Yep, you heard it right, we have to inject each other to practice before we can do locals on patients in 2nd year!

Drilling into a tooth with a diamond bur is confronting - it goes through like a hot knife through butter 

[pi]

In med (so far, possibly shinny could give a far more accurate account) we've dissected cadavers in the upper limb region. We'll do more as we progress I guess.

As for confronting, it is at first but already 4 weeks in and it's not an issue for most.

[shinny]

So I just wanted to ask you guys, what dissections do you do in medical or dental school?

Cadaver dissections?

What is the most confronting thing that one could expect in either of these courses?

Thanks

Dissected pretty much the entire body (as a tutorial group taking turns that is, didn't get to do everything individually). I got the job of hacking through the skull with a bone saw. Most confronting wouldn't be the gore though - you get desensitised pretty quickly. It's a necessity given that you'll eventually have to help out in surgeries and whatnot. I had my entire hand submerged in blood a couple of days ago during a Caesarian section. Cringe worthy, but I wasn't overly phased by it. You get the odd occasion where a medical student passes out in a surgery, but the majority get desensitised and are completely fine with it. The humane side of it is what can be most disturbing. Over the last 6 months, I've had to talk to people with cancer with several days left in their life, seen newborns die in front of me and even today saw a teenage mother smoke and drink her way through pregnancy. That's what would be the most confronting to me at least.

[Surgeon]

Apologies, I'm struggling to reconcile the title of this thread and the questions asked in the first post. Are you trying to decide between the two?

In any case, at UoM DDS we do not do cadaver dissections per se (at least not in the preclinical phase - later on in oral medicine & surgery it is possible). We examine preserved specimens, models and perform procedures on simulated tooth & jaw structures. We do a lot of virtual dissections etc. We do however perform exams and procedures on actual extracted teeth. Our radiology and radiography classes use actual skulls (dry bone) enclosed in a polymer casing.

What is the most confronting thing that one could expect in either of these courses?

Depends on what you find confronting. Most of the lay public would be quite disturbed by the idea of giving a local anaesthetic injection deep into the gingiva of your classmate and then receiving one from them in turn. Yep, you heard it right, we have to inject each other to practice before we can do locals on patients in 2nd year!

Drilling into a tooth with a diamond bur is confronting - it goes through like a hot knife through butter 

I'm considering studying undergraduate medicine or dentistry and just wanted to ask about what sort of dissections I could expect to perform and what current students find most confronting.

In med (so far, possibly shinny could give a far more accurate account) we've dissected cadavers in the upper limb region. We'll do more as we progress I guess.

As for confronting, it is at first but already 4 weeks in and it's not an issue for most.

That's pretty awesome. So early on in the course and you're already dissecting cadavers haha.

So I just wanted to ask you guys, what dissections do you do in medical or dental school?

Cadaver dissections?

What is the most confronting thing that one could expect in either of these courses?

Thanks

Dissected pretty much the entire body (as a tutorial group taking turns that is, didn't get to do everything individually). I got the job of hacking through the skull with a bone saw. Most confronting wouldn't be the gore though - you get desensitised pretty quickly. It's a necessity given that you'll eventually have to help out in surgeries and whatnot. I had my entire hand submerged in blood a couple of days ago during a Caesarian section. Cringe worthy, but I wasn't overly phased by it. You get the odd occasion where a medical student passes out in a surgery, but the majority get desensitised and are completely fine with it. The humane side of it is what can be most disturbing. Over the last 6 months, I've had to talk to people with cancer with several days left in their life, seen newborns die in front of me and even today saw a teenage mother smoke and drink her way through pregnancy. That's what would be the most confronting to me at least.

What was it like hacking through the skull?

I think I would pass out during surgery haha. I don't mind watching surgical procedures or dissections of any sort on the internet anymore, but I think it would be very different in person. Watching a hip replacement was the most gruesome thing I've ever seen :sick:

On the note about talking to people with little time left to live, I agree that it would be one of the most difficult aspects of working in the health sector. What can you say to someone like this? Wish them good luck? Tell them to have hope despite how grim their situation may be? What do you say to a mother who has just experienced the death of her newborn with you?

[paulsterio]

Well so far in my course I've found that even if you find dissection cadavers gruesome at first, you get used to it. I remember the first time I was in the dissecting room, I was quite nervous and was nauseous as well, so I just mostly watched whilst the other keen-beans did the dissecting, but after seeing it done, touching the cadaver and seeing that it actually feels nothing like a real person, it's not too bad - they don't bleed when you cut them, so it feels almost as if you're cutting through a model rather than a real person, but I guess it'll be different in surgery.

Prosection sessions also help, this is where you examine like arms and stuff which have been pre-disected and are no longer connected to the body - I think that by holding, analysing and playing with these dissected parts, you kind of get used to the whole notion of dissecting cadavers. It's because when they are detached, the arms and other parts don't feel like they're a part of the person (if that makes sense).

Anyways, if you don't feel comfortable cutting and working with cadavers early on, there will always be keen ones in your group who want to start off, so you can just watch for the first few sessions before digging in, but of course, you learn more if you actually get your hands dirty.

I agree with Shinny though, the emotional side of things is probably more confronting than the actual cadaver dissections. But I haven't been in that situation yet.

In all honesty though (and I'm sure pi would agree here ) the thing I've found most confronting is the...workload heheh

Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience

[ItsSKC]

Well what i find most confronting about dissections is the smell of the formaldehyde and the embalming fluid. My eyes and nose start to burn after awhile and i find it extremely unpleasant, and you smell afterwards. I find my hands smell afterwards even after wearing multiple gloves and washing them a dozen times. Then again i use my hands alot cause i find the muscles look better afterwards if i seperate the fascia with my fingers rather than the scissors and scalpel, also faster. I don't find the dissection itself confronting, which is good i guess, some of the girls cringe when i shove my fingers between the fascia and muscle lol. Oh a part that was both confronting and surreal was when i sawed through the clavicle to remove the whole arm from the cadaver. I also thought id mention that not every med program in australia has a dissection component. Some just involve examining prossections, one of the privileges of melb uni apparently (which we are constantly reminded of).

[Russ]

^^
As I found out on the weekend, UoM is the only Victorian uni that's part of the body donor program so they have an advantage at sourcing and using those materials I guess

[ItsSKC]

yea, supposedly monash has to 'buy' bodies from us

[pi]

yea, supposedly monash has to 'buy' bodies from us

Yep, $10,000 per body too :/

[ItsSKC]

I heard it was 8k but same diff.
I think its kinda silly though, if these people have donated their bodies to science then melb uni prob shouldve extended that generosity and 'given' some to monash rather then 'selling'. just my thought.

[brenden]

Yeah that's pretty messed. "Oh hey, you want a body, 10grand a pop, tell your friends"

[paulsterio]

I heard it was 8k but same diff.
I think its kinda silly though, if these people have donated their bodies to science then melb uni prob shouldve extended that generosity and 'given' some to monash rather then 'selling'. just my thought.

No, I don't think that this is fair on UoM. I'm a Monash student and I know how much we pay for the bodies and how much we wish we had more bodies. But I only think that it's fair that UoM gets reimbursed for embalming the cadaver and preparing it for dissection.

[Russ]

It's also probably a legal thing. If UoM is the only university that's okay under the human tissues act, there's probably a reason why they can't just be all BODIES FOR EVERYONE and share them equally

[BoredSatan]

For Latrobe Dent, we started looking at Cadaver specimens this semester. Mostly looking at the upper body, neck and head areas. Its a little confronting at first but I guess it gets better as you get used to it.