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WARNING: Some images are graphic. At Georgetown University Medical School, gross anatomy is a rite of passage for first-year students. And one reporter found the school is not at a loss for donor bodies.

Medical students learn from cadavers
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By Charles Dharapak, AP

Learning anatomy with cadavers is a centuries-old rite of passage that once again is getting a face-lift as medical schools struggle to mix this core knowledge with an explosion of new information from the genetics revolution.

Some facts:

Italian Mondino de Luzzi in the early 14th century reported on a series of dissections to illuminate body function. For years after that, dissections were done outside in public view, directed by a professor-type anatomist who seldom did the actual work. Sixteenth-century anatomist Andreas Vesalius is credited with breaking that trend, performing dissection himself as he taught and writing the influential drawing-filled text, "On the Workings of the Human Body."

Today, the nation's 150 medical schools average about 149 hours of training in first-year gross anatomy, about two-thirds of which is spent with cadaver dissection, according to a new survey by the American Association of Anatomists. That's a lot less than just 75 years ago, when anatomy still made up about one-fifth of a doctor's education.

Nearly one-third of schools integrate gross anatomy with initial clinical training. Two schools have older students do the dissecting and the first-year students just examine and handle the predissected body, saving time. One small school even has begun using unembalmed cadavers so the bodies feel more like what students will encounter in the operating room.

New state-of-the-art anatomy labs put ventilation into the tables to eliminate odor and bring computers to the side of the dissection to guide students' cuts and explain what they're handling.

How do people donate their bodies for medical education or research?

Contact a nearby medical school to learn each program's requirements. Fill out a donation form, copies of which should be shared with family members or kept in the wallet or another easy-to-access spot to ensure those wishes are known at the time of death. While there is no upper age limit, most programs cannot accept bodies that have undergone autopsy or funeral-home embalming, or if the donor had certain infectious diseases; other requirements vary.

Sources: Georgetown University, American Association of Anatomists.

--The Associated Press



Week after week, for six months, teams of students will file into in a laboratory at Georgetown University to slowly take apart "their" body.



Carefully probing a lump inside one chest, a team unearths what at first looks like a metal button — a port through which this man once received chemotherapy.









"We've been anticipating this moment a long time," says Christopher Chen of Irvine, Calif., anxious to get started. "It hits you — wow, you're a medical student."










This year, Suarez-Quian got a startling phone call a few weeks before class began: The morgue was almost full. Georgetown usually receives about 60 whole-body donations annually yet this year received between 80 and 90.

Schools don't pay for a body donation, but Suarez-Quian still worries that the economy may have played a role — with some families perhaps deciding on donation to avoid funeral costs — instead of a straightforward desire to contribute to science.
















"You don't lose sight of the mystery of it," McCarren says. "It's very moving — this is a person."



He is in charge of organizing a memorial service the class will host for their donors' families in the spring, when dissection is done. That's when students thank families, one on one, for this big step in their education.



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