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[veleda]

I am adjuncting A&P l for the first time this fall, starting next week, and have freaked myself out about doing the lab. I have an exercise physiology degree and have taught Human Physiology and Intro to the Human Body, but those classes didn't have a lab. I took A&P a few years ago but we only dissected sheep hearts. Also I used the microscope like...once, maybe twice, in that class.

But here's the major problem: I found out yesterday that although the lab manual is cat dissection, we will actually be doing a mink!! That just grosses me out more than I can tell you. A was thinking I could barely manage a cat, but for some reason a  mink just totally totally skeeves me out. Those little claw things. And those snouts. Uck.

The sheep's heart was no problem, and I have handled lots of human organs, and been present at a human dissection, none of which bothered me in the least. It's just the idea of these little dead animals.

This is all complicated by the fact that I've been a vegetarian for 40 years.

I looked at a few youTube clips to start to desensitize myself visually. I know in the end I'll just have to suck it up and deal, but any suggestions for getting from here to there?

[big_giant_head]

<so happy to be teaching lit and comp, wherein no tiny snouts lie>

[gennimom]

Is it injected with the blue and red stuff in the veins (I forget what it is)? To me the animals, especially the injected ones, always look like vinyl or something. Before I developed an iron stomach about that kind of thing, I used to tell myself they were just made out of plastic. Since they often looked like it, it worked for me.

[baphd1996]

I don't know how much flexilibility you will have as an adjunct, but there are several computer programs that simulate dissections.  I've always thought that the simulations can't match the real thing for learning, but they often do "good enough" for beginning classes.  Other options are pre-dissected specimens or models.

[archman]

Several of my colleagues that are new to anatomy labs have this same complaint.

You will, in time, view the specimens clinically rather than emotionally. It will probably require a great deal of direct dissection contact with the specimens. You do not want to look like a *sissy* in front of your students, either.

But you may never totally get over the fact that your students will be (sometimes gleefully) chopping up a critter that looks like it belongs at PetSmart. When I chop up starfish, I occasionally think sadly of the day they were taken from the ocean and murdered by Carolina Biological. Those rat bastards.

What grosses me out about mammals and birds is all the friggin' fats in their tissues. That stuff is just so GREASY, bleah!

It sounds like your own undergrad A&P lab class sucked. I would have expected a lot more scoping of tissue sections and a significant animal dissection component for most class periods.

[unspoiled]

This is all complicated by the fact that I've been a vegetarian for 40 years.

I looked at a few youTube clips to start to desensitize myself visually. I know in the end I'll just have to suck it up and deal, but any suggestions for getting from here to there?

I sympathize.

I went to med school and lived to tell through two years of human dissections.  I used to be and still am a voracious meat-eater (and a fruit-eater, and raw-vegetable eater) but that period wasn't easy for me, or for any of my omnivorous classmates.  Nobody was in the kind of pain you seem to describe, just mild discomfort. But still.

The days you have lab, you may not be able to eat any solid food afterward.  You need to give yourself permission to take it at your own pace.  Have a nice sustaining breakfast in the morning.  Yogurt with muesli, fruit salad, crackers and the like shouldn't evoke any offensive associations.  

For dinner, I found that soup worked very well.  When you do have to eat solid food because you feel weak, but it still makes you squeamish, eating while flipping through a book or magazine works wonders.  Your taste buds will recognize the food as good for you. Skip the visual part.  

It helps if you have a locker where you can keep your work-related clothing, gloves, instruments etc. (I don't know what you're using in your class environment) preferably at work (or at home, if it can't be helped), out of the way, so you don't bump into them when you least need it, lest they trigger unpleasant associations.

Those little claw things. And those snouts. Uck.

...It's just the idea of these little dead animals.

I found it useful to stop telling myself it's a "dead animal", a "dead human body" "a cadaver" or whatever. It's a specimen imbibed with formaldehyde.  Even if I ended up locked accidentally overnight in the same room with it, it wouldn't rise off the table and bite.  It can't hurt me, and I can't hurt it.  It's a little more offensive than a stuffed animal, and we don't have to graduate from those because we can't be kids forever, can we? We're considerate sensitive adults practicing our skills on these sensation-deprived specimens as not to harm live animals or live people.  We're doing a good thing.  Or whatever self-pep-talk makes you feel better.  

Oh, and don't let anyone make immature jokes around you.  There are people, of all ages and walks of life (not just students), who bring up food talk during dissections, and what not.  It's a way of easing their own anxiety.  Do not allow yourself to be impressed.  

[frogfactory]

Practise, practise, practise.  Get yourself good and desensitised.  You turning green and passing out will not make a great impression on the class.

[unspoiled]

It's a little more offensive than a stuffed animal, and we don't have to graduate from those because we can't be kids forever, can we?

We DO have to graduate from those.  Silly editing function. 

[mountainguy]

I'm not in the sciences, although I did take A&P in high school. The dissections didn't gross me out then, although I've grown more squeamish in subsequent years. I could barely make it through Red Cross first aid training three years ago, especially when one of the simulated emergencies was a burn victim.

One thing that helped me get through that training was to try to try to distract myself from my queasiness. I found a rubber-band in the room, put it around my wrist, and snapped it whenever I found the queasiness getting the best of me. The person sitting next to me thought I was nuts, but it worked.

[ms_turtle]

Hi. Loads of dissection experience here. Some tips:

- You must go through each phase of the dissection by yourself before conducting a dissection with students. Your primary reason for this is to get past the your own reservations. Additionally, you will need experience with understanding the normal is a range rather than an absolute. Virtual dissections cannot replace the latter as everything is always the same every single time you look at it. Another point about virtual dissections is that they provide one with no information about how a tissue feels.
- Take the skin off as quickly as you can. This will help to approach the mink as a teaching specimen rather than "on my god, this thing was once alive, I can see it's whiskers, is it looking at me......"
- Your students are going to ask where the specimens came from. Mink for dissection are purpose bred and were not collected from wild populations. Many specimens are like this but there are some exceptions.
- As unspoiled wrote, don't make or listen to any jokes about the specimens. It is unacceptable. This organism is here for the student to learn. Jokes cheapen and degrade the learning experience. As you get past the ewww factor, you as well as your students will progress towards acknowledgement and appreciation for how fascinating the body is and how fortunate we are to be able to learn through dissection.
- It is ok to talk about how the specimen is prepared for preservation and dissection. The techniques for latex injection (highlighting the arterial and venous vessels) and formalin fixation are quite interesting.
- Be prepared for at least one of your specimens to be pregnant.
- Start a virtual nickel jar (for your own amusement) as in "If I had a nickel for every time a student asked me... what the he!! is that (the greater omentum), is that really the pancreas, etc."

You may also want to get on the HAPS (Human Anatomy and Physiology Society) listserv for tips from other A&P instructors.

[barred_owl]

Zoologist here, who has dissected virtually every commonly available vertebrate animal, invertebrate animal, and assorted organs and tissues.

My recommendation is that you will need to do your own practice dissection(s) before you even attempt to instruct others in the process and principles of dissection.  Doing so not only assures that you will know your way around the specimen, but that you will be comfortable working with it.  I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough--you MUST practice before your students get anywhere near the lab.  And, although YouTube videos may help you overcome some of your squeamishness, they are simply not a substitute for working with these specimens with your own two hands.

Given your limited exposure to vertebrate dissection, I would also like to suggest a few tips that I picked up along the way:

1.  When you work with the specimens, your blunt probe tool is your best friend.  Scissors can be used to cut through skin, but once the initial incision is made the only tools you should use are the blunt probe or your fingers.  Scalpels are fine for surgeons, but they are often misused by students and can cause serious injury not only to you or your students, but can really damage the specimen, too.

2.  Never, ever refer to what you are doing as "chopping up," "hacking," or other relatively violent actions.  You are dissecting, exposing, or revealing instead.

3.  You probably would not do so, but (as suggested in unspoiled's post) your students might make immature or inappropriate comments about the specimen while they work.  Don't allow that; nip it in the bud.  Teaching students how to work respectfully with preserved animal specimens is important.

Also, before you embark on the dissection, you might want to check with your chairperson regarding the department's policy regarding students who refuse to engage in the dissection because of personal objections to the process.  What will you do if you have a student who simply will not do the dissection because s/he finds it morally objectionable?  Find out now, before you are confronted with this situation in the classroom.

As unspoiled stated, you will have to remind yourself that the animal specimen is just that--a specimen, a teaching tool.  It's no longer alive, and it is there to make understanding of vertebrate form and function a little easier.

Good luck--and practice, practice, practice!

On preview, frogfactory and, especially, ms_turtle also have excellent points--all made while I was composing this post! ;)

[ms_turtle]

1.  When you work with the specimens, your blunt probe tool is your best friend.  Scissors can be used to cut through skin, but once the initial incision is made the only tools you should use are the blunt probe or your fingers.  Scalpels are fine for surgeons, but they are often misused by students and can cause serious injury not only to you or your students, but can really damage the specimen, too.

This can never be stressed enough.

Additionally, make sure your students learn how to pronounce dissection correctly. It's dis-section not di-ssection. Use the word disarticulate to help explain the difference.

[barred_owl]

1.  When you work with the specimens, your blunt probe tool is your best friend.  Scissors can be used to cut through skin, but once the initial incision is made the only tools you should use are the blunt probe or your fingers.  Scalpels are fine for surgeons, but they are often misused by students and can cause serious injury not only to you or your students, but can really damage the specimen, too.

This can never be stressed enough.

Additionally, make sure your students learn how to pronounce dissection correctly. It's dis-section not di-ssection. Use the word disarticulate to help explain the difference.

Ms_t, did we have the same anatomy prof once upon a time?  He was a stickler regarding pronunciation of the word diSSection!

[big_giant_head]

I've been saying it wrong all this time.  And this discussion is fascinating to me.  For some reason, it never occurred to me that people who teach A&P might be squeamish about dissections.  I'm actually happy to find that it's true.

(I don't think it was for my 8th-grade biology teacher.  He was remarkably nonchalant about the critters.  But then, he had been a combat Marine in WWII.)

[ms_turtle]

Additionally, make sure your students learn how to pronounce dissection correctly. It's dis-section not di-ssection. Use the word disarticulate to help explain the difference.

Ms_t, did we have the same anatomy prof once upon a time?  He was a stickler regarding pronunciation of the word diSSection!

I'm not quite sure how it developed, but each of my students knows that one of my biggest peeves is when terms are used incorrectly. Know your Latin and Greek roots, use them correctly, and pronounce them correctly!

I've been saying it wrong all this time.  And this discussion is fascinating to me.  For some reason, it never occurred to me that people who teach A&P might be squeamish about dissections.  I'm actually happy to find that it's true.

I think my students are happy to realize that we all have dissections that didn't go well. My shark, cranial nerves, and dull scalpel story from my undergraduate days is a classic.