150 - The Good, the Bad, and the Challenging: Medical Student Perceptions of Ethical Conduct in Gross Anatomy Lab

Poster Board Number: 150
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Co-authors:

Evan Fairweather - Medical Student, Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple/St. Luke’s Campus; Michael Cardiges - Medical Student, Lewis Katz School of Medicine Temple/St. Luke’s Campus

Abstract Body : Introduction & Purpose: Ethics refers to principles governing what is good for the individual as well as the society at large. Given the historically and inherently challenging nature of human dissection, it is important that measures be taken to ensure sound ethical conduct in modern anatomy labs. Ethical codes, often driven by societal standards and the ideas of those in scientific community, have been guiding anatomists through the ethical quandary of human dissection. This study sought to explore medical students’ code of ethical conduct in relation to the human dissection.

Methods: Twenty semi-structured interviews and 4 focus groups were conducted with a total of 44 students from all four years of undergraduate medical education at one medical school. Sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative thematic analysis was conducted by developing an inductive coding scheme, which resulted in emergence of major themes from the data.

Results: Student perspectives were categorized as follows: A) good ethical practices, which include detailed rules of ethical conduct developed and frequently emphasized by faculty, student culture of self and peer correction, mindfulness, and intentionality in the act of dissection; B) bad ethical practices, which include rules, regulations, gestures, and comments deemed as inappropriate on the part of the students, faculty, and the institutions; and C) ethically challenging practices, which include meeting the cadaver for the first time, concerns over the donors and donor families’ knowledge about details of the dissection process, finding balance between objectification and personification of the bodies, students’ unspoken rules about what counts as “weakness”, and absent-minded/careless dissection.

Conclusion: Students exhibited a range of perspectives about the ethical code of conduct in relation to human dissection. Generally, ‘good’ ethical practices were noticed and appreciated, ‘bad’ ethical practices were rather passively condemned, whereas challenging ethical practices were often justified by the importance of human dissection in medical education.

Significance & Implications: The act of human dissection often leads students to reflect on an array of ethically challenging themes. Upholding ethical standards during dissection is a step towards medical students living the ethics of medicine. After all, medical professionalism is a moral commitment to the ethics of medical service. Given the significance of anatomical dissection in medical professional identity formation, and the latter being a fundamental component of medical education, further research is warranted to explore and include more student perspectives in the current standard rules of ethical conduct in anatomy labs.