Excitement or Apprehension: Exposure of Students to Cadaveric Dissection in 1st MBBS

Introduction: Dissection as a part of anatomy brings students to a close encounter with human mortality. They experience a variety of emotional reactions during their first exposure to cadavers. Dissection forming an integral part of knowledge helps in developing a tactile appreciation of the structure of human body unlike learning from prosected specimens and computerized teaching. Methods: In order to assess the level of excitement or apprehension we prepared a questionnaire with 15 questions 14 were to be answered on a Likert’s scale and 1 was open ended. These questionnaires were distributed to 600 students over the period of 4 years (2011 to 2014 admissions). Statistical analysis was done. Results: Out of 522 students, 62% (324) were excited with dissection of cadavers and 20% (108) were apprehensive. 76% (393) students felt that dissection cannot be replaced by the computer assisted teaching. Student- teacher interaction helps them to understand better and cope with the varied reactions due to formalin odour. Conclusion: Dissection is associated with a variety of emotional reactions like excitement, fear, odour and some physical symptoms. A better teacher student relationship with prior interaction helps in overcoming the said reactions.