Do we really need cadavers anymore to learn anatomy in undergraduate medicine?

Abstract

With the availability of numerous adjuncts or alternatives to learning anatomy other than cadavers (medical imaging, models, body painting, interactive media, virtual reality) and the costs of maintaining cadaver laboratories, it was considered timely to have a mature debate about the need for cadavers in the teaching of undergraduate medicine. This may be particularly pertinent given the exponential growth in medical knowledge in other disciplines, which gives them valid justification for time in already busy medical curricula. In this symposium, the pros and cons of cadaver use in modern medical curricula were debated and audience participation encouraged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

P. G. McMenamin

P. G. McMenamin, Director of the Centre for Human Anatomy Education, Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

J. McLachlan

J. McLachlan is currently Deputy Head of Medical School at UCLan, and previously has held senior roles at Durham and Peninsula Medical Schools. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Medical Education, and is currently engaged in projects with Health Education England, the UK Foundation Project Office, and the GMC, among others. He introduced anatomy teaching based on imaging, clinical skills and living anatomy but without cadavers, at Peninsula in 2002, a UK first, and his papers in this area have been heavily cited internationally.

A. Wilson

A. Wilson is an Assistant Professor and Director of Anatomy Education for the Department of Cell and Molecular Medicine at Rush University. Dr. Wilson’s research focus is in the field of ‘educational measurement and evaluation’, which entails a range of topics including test/instrument development and validation, program evaluation, and quantitative analysis of educational and psychological data. His most recent projects have focused on meta-analyzing debated topics in anatomy education. These studies have explored the use of virtual versus optical microscopy, the efficacy of anatomy laboratory pedagogies, and the effectiveness of student-centered and computer-aided instruction in the anatomical sciences.

J. M. McBride

J. M. McBride is Associate Professor of Surgery, Director of Virtual Anatomy Education, Director of Histology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine/Cleveland Clinic.

J. Pickering

J. Pickering is an associate professor of Anatomy in the Division of Anatomy, School of Medicine, University of Leeds, UK. He teaches trunk and neuroanatomy to medical and students and leads the anatomy curriculum for the MBChB program. He has a strong interest in technology-enhanced learning and how it can be used to support learner gain.

D. J. R. Evans

D. J. R. Evans is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Previous appointments include Pro-Vice Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at Monash University and Associate Dean and Head of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK. He is an Associate Editor of Anatomical Sciences Education and has published a range of papers on learning and teaching pedagogy.

A. Winkelmann

A. Winkelmann is medically qualified. After short periods of clinical training in Germany and the UK, he worked in anatomy departments in Homburg/Germany, Basel/Switzerland, and Berlin with a focus on teaching. In 1999, he acquired an additional Masters degree in medical anthropology in London which involved fieldwork in a dissecting room in Thailand. Since 2015, he has been Professor of anatomy at the newly founded Medical School Brandenburg in Neuruppin. His research focus is on medical education, history and ethics of anatomy, and provenance research on human remains.