Emotional response of undergraduates to cadaver dissection

The most effective way to learn human anatomy is through cadaver dissection. Historically, cadaver dissection has been the provenance of professional schools. Increasingly, cadaver-based courses in human anatomy are shifting to the undergraduate level, which creates both problems and opportunities because of differences between undergraduate and graduate student populations. Anxiety associated with dissecting cadavers can create a barrier to learning, and ultimately, entry into the health and medical sciences for some demographic subpopulations of undergraduates. We surveyed 76 students in 2007 and 51 students in 2009 at four times in the semester to investigate the timing and sociodemographic predictors of anxiety over cadaver dissection. We followed this with a second survey of 44 students in 2014 to test the effect of humanization of cadaver donors (providing information about donor occupation and cause of death) to reduce student anxiety. Students experienced anxiety upon first exposure to cadaver dissection. Female students experienced greater anxiety than male students upon first exposure to cadavers but this effect was short-lived. Self-identified non-white, non-Christian students experienced sustained anxiety throughout the semester, likely because cadaver stress compounded social and financial stressors unique to international students. Humanization was effective in reducing anxiety in non-white, non-Christian students but had the unexpected effect of increasing anxiety in female students. We recommend that humanizing information be offered to students who seek it out, but not forced upon students for whom the information would only add to their stress. Clin. Anat. 31:224-230, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.