Talking about death: Implementing peer discussion as a coping mechanism to overcome fears about dissection, death, and dying

Abstract

Many studies have reported on the perceptions of medical students toward dissection. It is important to understand the feelings and symptoms experienced during dissection so that they can be adequately handled. Prior to dissection, first year students are given lectures on aspects of dissection, death and dying, and death rituals in various cultures. Two separate questionnaires, one given during the first week of dissection and another given one month into the program were then completed anonymously by dissection groups. The questions were designed to be open-ended, thereby encouraging group discussion amongst students. The questionnaires were used to determine the perception of students to dissection and to discover if these perceptions change during the dissection program. The first questionnaire revealed that students do experience fears and anxiety prior to and at the beginning of dissection; however, most of these fears dissipated by the time of the second questionnaire. One month into dissection students cited talking to peers as their main coping mechanism and fewer students mentioned emotional detachment from their cadaver as a coping mechanism, as was the case in the first questionnaire. Dissection was perceived as a positive experience by our student cohort and most students cited the main advantage of dissection as the ability to visualize organs in three dimensions. The comprehensive answers received from the students indicated that thorough discussion of feelings amongst peers occurred, introducing students to an important coping mechanism at an early stage of their learning.

Optimizing the use of cadavers by integrating pathology during anatomy dissection

“…Lecturers observed that it stimulated discussion on the cadaver pathology within and between dissection groups. A previous study conducted at our institution demonstrated that one of the main benefits which students hope to gain from dissection was an improvement of their theoretical morphological knowledge (Kotzé and Mole, ). The integration of pathology into dissection further aids in this outcome by emphasizing the clinical importance of anatomy.…”

“…Studies on the relevance of cadaver dissection in the training of medical students often debate the advantages and disadvantages thereof from the point of view of both students and lecturers (Ellis, ; Aziz et al, ; Granger, ; McLachlan and Patten, ; Gregory et al, ; Kotzé and Mole, ). It has however been argued that many of the “advantages” of cadaver dissection may be obtained by other pedagogical modalities such as prosections, plastinated specimens, living anatomy, medical imaging, and traditional didactic lectures and textbooks (McLachlan and Regan De Bere, ; McLachlan et al, ).…”

Anxiety among Medical Students when Faced with the Practice of Anatomical Dissection

“…Students may occasionally experience apprehension, interest or even a morbid curiosity when physically faced with death. Researchers have described a "rite of passage," "socializing with death" and sometimes even a process of dehumanization in relation to dissection (Dickinson et al, 1997;Plaisant et al, 2011;Kotzé and Mole, 2013;Sandor et al, 2015;Dosani and Neuberger, 2016). It is one of the first professional contacts with death (Abu-Hijelh et al, 1997;Tschernig et al, 2000;Boeckers and Boeckers, 2016;Goodwin et al, 2016), but the experience can be satisfying, with 76% of students stating that they believed it could not be replaced with any alternative material or model (Mompeó Corredera, 2014;Sandor et al, 2015).…”

Medical students' understanding of the concept of a soul

“…However, religion and spirituality did not appear to have a major affect on our students' responses with many who did not identify as having religious or spiritual belongings still believing in the soul. Others have found that despite having a low proportion of “religious” students, 35% of their class believed in the concept of heaven and hell and 30% believed in an eternal afterlife, similar to the concept of the soul (Kotzé and Mole, ). Some of their students (19%) also viewed the body as merely a shell to house the soul, not required for transition to an afterlife (Kotzé and Mole, ).…”

“…Others have found that despite having a low proportion of "religious" students, 35% of their class believed in the concept of heaven and hell and 30% believed in an eternal afterlife, similar to the concept of the soul (Kotz e and Mole, 2013). Some of their students (19%) also viewed the body as merely a shell to house the soul, not required for transition to an afterlife (Kotz e and Mole, 2013).…”