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[barcrossliar]

The smell is the worst part.  some things that help are, draining excess preservatives into a container with a lid to reduce fumes, ventilation (fans if your windows don't open), and ordering only as many as you need for the semester.  "Leftovers" work fine, but stink more.  Make sure students put their waste tissues into a lidded container.  Don't let anyone use air freshener.  The only thing worse than nauseating smells is cherry-scented nauseating smells.

Chime on leaving dissection coat in lab. 

When possible, I get specimens from the grocery store (crayfish, clams, etc.).  They're non-stinky (when fresh), and look and feel more like live specimens.  You should take them directly to the dumpster.

Keeping the head and paws covered may help.  You don't want those tissues to dry out anyway, so the moist paper towels can keep tissues moist, Keep fumes down, and hide the more disturbing parts.

-+LR

[bibliothecula]

Sorry, but my first thought was, do you get to keep the skin? Fur-cuffed mittens for winter!

[frogfactory]

Our teaching lab manager insists that partial dissections be stored until the second week in fabric softener.  I would thoroughly recommend not doing this.

[lurquita]

I cannot resist, I am unable to just sit here in lurqui-dom without comment, I must speak my truth:

OH HOLY COW READING THIS THREAD IS GIVING ME A DIZZY SPELL.


                                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There, I feel better now.

I am in an MLA field and we do not dissect.  And it is fascinating to read what the seasoned scientists have to say in response to the OP but I am not kidding: I literally felt as though I would swoon after the first page.  I am going to flip back and read pages two and three now. 

If I pass out, I promise I'll log back on later and give everyone an update.

:D

Lurquita

[barred_owl]

Someone grab the smelling salts!  We've got a fainter!

(Just joshin' with ya, lurquita!)

[the_honey_badger]

I'm fascinated by the fact that it doesn't bother the OP or some others to see human dissection but a rodent (or whatever they are)? Oh, the horror!  THAT freaks me out.

[lurquita]

Someone grab the smelling salts!  We've got a fainter!

(Just joshin' with ya, lurquita!)

Hee hee hee!

I refrained from passing out, but I'm not gonna lie... I did read the rest of the thread and feel a little green.

I'm sure that dissection is exciting for those that can (Genninom, your post just about sent me over the edge) but I would be the undergraduate who quietly falls to the ground by the time the first demonstration was about halfway through.  No vomiting, no theatrics, just a silent slide and a thud when I hit.

Maybe one of your students will faint the first day, OP, and then you no longer have to be embarrassed or worried about being the green-gilled one in the classroom.

On a side-note: have any of the scientists had anyone pass out in class?  What do you guys do at that? 

Inquiring minds wish to know.

Lurqui

[mystictechgal]

Hm, now see, the mink wouldn't really bother me, but much as I loved biology I refused to take Bio II in HS because I'd have had to dissect a pregnant cat.  Worms, starfish, hearts, fetal pigs, I've even watched a human autopsy... no problem (my group named our fetal pig Gretchen), but a pregnant cat, where they held a contest to see which cat would have had the most kittens?  No way.

All I can suggest is that it will get better with practice.  Chopping frozen mice and chicks into chunks to train the Arctic fox skeeved me out at first, but I got used to it.  Then I graduated to using scissors to cut thawed out mice into chunks to train the Rough-legged Hawk.  I'd much rather dissect them than chunk them, but I got used to that, too.  I even learned to stand fast when the hawk would shake her head to clean her beak and I'd get the remnants in the face. 

You do what you have to do, and if you want the end result badly enough you get used to the steps that get you there.  Seriously, good luck.  You can do it.

[big_giant_head]

You all just reminded me of something an ex-girlfriend once told me. She was a nurse.  She was changing fields from cardiac nursing to ER nursing, and had to learn to assist with putting in a chest tube.  The first time she saw it done, she fainted.

Now, this was a woman who had been a professional nurse for more than 10 years.  She had assisted in surgeries with no problems and no squeamishness.  But one chest tube in an emergency room put her over the edge.

One of the other staff members had the key: in surgery (and maybe cadaver dissection?  Not having done it, I don't know), you just look at one area of the person at a time.  The rest is draped, and the area you work with is not, to your psyche, a "person." 

But when you put in a chest tube, the person is often (always?) awake and in great pain.  You aren't working with a sterile, isolated, clinical specimen, but with a human being whose bodily integrity (don't know how else to put it) is being violated.  By you. 

The little animals on the table might just be dead critters, but they still have paws and faces.  I can imagine that this would make it harder for those of us who grew up owning pets to dissociate from their little animal selves and see them as specimens.

[llanfair]

The mink I dissected in my undergrad days had been skinned ... so no fur, and no way to tell whether it had been a tourmaline, alas. 

One of my favourite dissections was actually a turtle.  Fascinating, and all carried out in what amounted to a bowl with a lid.  Also the cat brain, with the cranial nerves and all those delicate structures.

My, I'm getting nostalgic for science!

[phlegmatic]

I think it's great that you are preparing for the prospect that many of your students will also be disturbed by dissection. I would also suggest preparing alternatives for students who are ethically opposed to dissection. I was fortunate to have a lab instructor who understood my ethical opposition and provided me with alternatives. I still managed to learn everything I was supposed to learn without slicing up an animal.

Many animal protection organizations have packets that students and faculty can request in order to provide instructional opportunities for everyone:

http://www.aavs.org/eduDissection.html
http://www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/animals_in_education/

I'm in the social sciences, anyway, so no more dissection for me!

[scienceprof]

1. As you already know, you must practice the dissection prior to teachig it to the students.
2. Students who have moral objections to dissections should not take courses which require dissection; there is NO substitute for hands-on lab, the virtuals are not the same.
3. Although you should tell the students not to make inappropriate jokes, I wouldn't be to harsh with them on this point - many are just trying to cover for there own discomfort/squeamishness.

Let us know how it goes!

[euro_trash]

What a barbaric and humocentric practice!  

[phlegmatic]

2. Students who have moral objections to dissections should not take courses which require dissection; there is NO substitute for hands-on lab, the virtuals are not the same.

Unless the course is required to graduate, or to graduate with honors. It's not my fault that the honors program at my uni required this course. ;)

Pre-med or med students opposed to dissection is a different debate, but many lower-level lab classes are still required for graduation, even if you're a social science major. So I say (again), please do consider alternatives for your students. If you are grossed out, freaked out, or simply dreading the idea of dissection, chances are your students are, too, and some of them may have ethical objections to the practice.

[scienceprof]

2. Students who have moral objections to dissections should not take courses which require dissection; there is NO substitute for hands-on lab, the virtuals are not the same.

Unless the course is required to graduate, or to graduate with honors. It's not my fault that the honors program at my uni required this course. ;)

Pre-med or med students opposed to dissection is a different debate, but many lower-level lab classes are still required for graduation, even if you're a social science major. So I say (again), please do consider alternatives for your students. If you are grossed out, freaked out, or simply dreading the idea of dissection, chances are your students are, too, and some of them may have ethical objections to the practice.

I think the appropriate solution here (although not a change an individual professor can make) is to change the gen-ed requirements. 
Actually, I think it is quite rare for a university to require all students to take anatomy (or zoology); most of the time those courses are only required for the majors that require them - in which case there is a good reason that students need to do all of the lab work.
It seems to be that a better option for a gen-ed requirement is to allow a different biology course, such as botony or microbiology, to count for the biology requirement, rather than changing something rather fundamental to an anatomy lab.