Reactions of first year Indian medical students to the dissection hall experience
Reactions of first year Indian medical students to the dissection hall experience
Keywords:
Medical students, emotional stress, cadaver, dissectionAbstract
First year medical students normally experience a variety of emotional reactions and mixed feelings, when they encounter human cadavers. Our study explores attitudes and views of Indian male and female students towards cadaver dissection. We prepared questionnaires to assess whether emotional stress can be diminished and observed changes in feeling and attitude in control and experimental groups. The questionnaires were filled at three times. Questionnaire 1(assessing attitude) was given to each student before visiting the dissecting room. After the first exposure to cadaver both groups were given questionnaire 2 (including physical and cognitive symptoms). The questionnaire 2 was given again after six weeks. The cumulative data was subjected to statistical analysis. The difference in the rate of anxiety initially and 6 weeks later was significant (p<0.001) in the control group, but not in the experimental group. There was no statistically significant difference in the rate of anxiety between experimental and control group after 6 weeks. We need to prepare mentally and emotionally the students before entering the dissection room so that they are involved and stimulated. Dissection allows haptic appreciation of 3 –D anatomy and enjoys student preference. The student-cadaver-patient encounter is paramount.
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