“I was wondering how your teachers de-sensitize death for you guys and the amount of respect or dis-respect the students afford to the stiffs. And if you think dissection is a rite of passage or could be taught differently like through digital training?”
Sister:
“The professors don't really de-sensitize anything at my school. In fact, I was really surprised on the first day when we didn't get any sort of counseling about it. At Nick's [sister’s boyfriend] school they had a de-briefing where they talked about whether or not they believed the soul was in the body. At my school we had 3 minutes of silence to honor the people who donated to us, unzipped them, and started. I was really scared the first day- -but I think by not making it into a big deal it actually made it easier for me to handle it. . . . The first day I noticed he [cadaver] was wearing a Band-Aid and got really emotional for a minute because it made everything so human. I was always able to do my work, and sometimes I would hold his hand. Other classmates of mine would do similar things, like hand holding, or talking or praying with their cadavers. . . . There was a variety of respect depending on the student. I was pissed because at the end we were supposed to clean out metal tools and such from the body bags so they wouldn't be cremated with metal objects. I was one of only 5 people to go in and do this process. We were also supposed to spray the bodies to take care of them and keep them moist to last longer and many students didn't do that either. . . . However, minus a few crude comments here or there, most of the students had a base line of respect and didn't do anything too horrible that I ever saw. There was only one comment I ever directly heard and a professor wasn't there. The professors all took it really seriously though. . . . Um, I DEFINITELY think it is a rite of passage because it is quite the experience from start to finish and I became very close with my group going through the experience together. And some other schools do it digitally and I would not want to go there and I think they may have studies out saying that computerized dissection is not as good and students won't score as well on the boards or in their surgical rotations.”
Domalski. Josh
Josh,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing these insights from someone who is on the "inside," so to speak. It seems as thought much of what your sister says replicates the perspectives of Roach and Washington as to contemporary views of dissection and changing levels of respect toward cadavers (that they are humanized and not merely inhuman objects or teaching "tools").