The Utility of Cadaver‐Based Approaches for the Teaching of Human Anatomy: A Survey of British and Irish Anatomy Teachers

Human cadavers have been used for centuries to learn about the human body. Today they still represent a key anatomy learning tool in most Medical Schools. Using reality anatomy such as dissection and demonstrating using cadavers has been described as a superior way to create meaning. To prevent the decomposition of cadavers and to decrease any health risks, cadavers are embalmed using different chemicals. These chemicals can differentially alter the tissue of the human body which has led to the usage of different processes along the hard to soft‐fixed spectrum of preserved cadavers. However, it is currently unclear what is the perceived utility of the different preservation modalities within anatomy learning environments. To this end we used a questionnaire based approach to gain a better insight into the opinion of anatomists on the use of preserved cadavers for the teaching of human anatomy. We focused on anatomy teachers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. From the 125 participating anatomists, 34.4% were medically qualified, 30.4% had a PhD in a non‐anatomical science and 22.4% had a PhD in an anatomical science, these figures include ten anatomists who had combinations of MD with the two other PhD qualifications. Anatomists with different background had different experiences. Table 1 shows the experiences of participating anatomist. The main findings from the questionnaire were that 61.6% of participants agreed that hard‐fixed formalin cadavers accurately resemble features of a human body while 21.6% disagreed. Moreover, anatomists rated the teaching aids on how accurately resemble features of the human body as follows ( Figure 1) : plastic models the least accurate followed by plastinated specimen, and hard fixed cadavers; soft preserved cadavers were considered to be the most accurate when it comes to resembling features of the human body. Friedman test was conducted followed by Post hoc analysis with Wilcoxon signed‐rank tests showing that there was a statistically significant difference in rating between the different teaching aids. With different embalming solutions becoming more commercially available, it is important to remain unbiased and consider the best interest of education and research. Further research is required in order to investigate which techniques or methods provide better teaching tool for a range of anatomical teaching levels and for the sections of the body used in surgical training. 1 Experience of anatomists teaching in the U.K. and Ireland in surgery, teaching a cadaver based anatomy module, examining the tissue of dissected fresh cadavers and examining the tissue of dissected soft preserved cadavers.Experience Yes (%)Surgery ± 34.4% Cadaver Teaching 98.4% Examine Fresh Cadaver 52% Examine Soft Preserved cadaver 56%+ relevant to those who chose Medical Degree