Dissection and demonstration by anatomists: back to good old days.

Abstract

The practice of the anatomist himself dissecting the human body and demonstrating the details to the students was prevalent in the European universities during the Renaissance (Ghosh, 2015). The great Paduan anatomist, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was a pioneer in this method of teaching as he displayed his exceptional dissection skills to the students during anatomical sessions (Goodrich, 1982). Later on, accomplished anatomists like Hieronymus Fabricius ab Acquapendente (1533-1619), Johann Vesling (1598-1649), Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770), William Hunter (17181783) and many others followed the same tradition while teaching in the dissection lab (Mavrodi et al., 2013). Their efforts were instrumental in human cadaveric dissection achieving the central role in medical training and research in those days. Human cadaveric dissection has been the primary medium of teaching gross anatomy to medical students for centuries, however in recent times teaching anatomy by dissection no longer commands the same number of class hours as it once did as more and more educational material is being inducted into medical school curricula over the past few decades (Ramsey-Stewart et al., 2010). Nevertheless human dissection remains the primary means of delivering fundamental regional, relational and topographical anatomical knowledge in medical schools of India (Ghosh and Sharma, 2015). In accordance with the undergraduate medical education curriculum in India, human cadaveric dissection constitutes a significant part of the teaching hours during the first two semesters. The prevalent trend in most of the medical schools in India is to allow the students to dissect by themselves and consult the anatomist (faculty members) present in the dissection lab as and when required (Holla et al., 2009). The students are required to follow an authentic text, which is usually Cunningham’s manual of practical anatomy, which acts as a guide while undertaking dissection. Such a practice is based on the hypothesis that it would assist the students to learn and retain the details of gross anatomy. However this method of teaching in the dissection lab is associated with some major drawbacks as experienced by us