A qualitative study of how students learn from human cadavers

Anatomy is a key area of knowledge relevant to many disciplines and cadaveric dissection is a popular and effective option for anatomy teaching for many disciplines. Much of the previous research into how students learn from cadaveric dissection involves students of medicine. This paper revisits key findings reporting research involving medical students outlining the complexity of the issues raised in learning anatomy through cadaveric dissection. We also present the findings from a small-scale qualitative study, which aimed to explore students from a range of disciplines about their experiences of learning anatomy from human cadavers, conducted over a 12 month period at the University of Sheffield, UK. This included eight first-year medical students, one first-year dentistry student, two students from a post graduate course in the Department of Archaeology, and two second -year biomedical science (BMS) students. The study provides important information about students, including those outside medicine, and their experiences of learning anatomy from cadaveric dissection. Students could observe anatomical variation and learn though the multisensory experience of dissection. Overall, cadaveric dissection was viewed positively although there was one exception. The most important findings are that there was no suggestion that students objectified the body, and this is in contrast to previous work in the area. In fact, students disliked the aspect of prosections that meant that they were disconnected from their human bodies. The second important finding is the similarities of perceptions across disciplines, and this is a departure from previous research, which focuses on medical students. We make some tentative suggestions for the preparation and support for students learning anatomy from cadaveric dissection.