| Medical students learn through a variety of lectures and labs, the components of which become the structural pillars of their identity as physicians. Researchers claim that the dissection laboratory in medical school is the quintessential learning arena for future behavioral traits such as coping with anxiety, mortality, detachment, and compassion.1 Research has also indicated that the lessons learned in the dissection laboratory come at a staggering price. Studies conducted at US medical schools indicate that students incur a wide range of psychological trauma during the initial and subsequent weeks while dissecting cadavers in the laboratory.2 In an effort to help medical students acclimatize to the process of dissection, US medical schools in the 1970s, introduced the Medical Humanities into their curriculums. 3.;This study investigates the literature that has emerged from students who have participated in medical humanities programs during their course in the dissection laboratory. Corpse Poetry, poetry written by a living author in the voice of the dead, authored by medical students is analyzed as a vehicle to help students cope with dissection. This research is done in the hope that it will influence medical education reform in the acclimatization process of the dissection laboratory.;1 Johanna Shapiro et al., "Relationship of Creative Projects in Anatomy to Medical Student Professionalism, Test Performance and Stress: An Exploratory Study," BMC Medical Education 9 (2009): 2. See also Jane Louise William, "Don't Discuss It: Reconciling Illness, Dying, and Death in a Medical School Anatomy Laboratory," Family Systems Medicine 10, no. 1 (1992): 67. 2 Heidi K. Lempp, "Perceptions of Dissection by Students in one Medical School: Beyond Learning about Anatomy. A Qualitative Study," Medical Education 39 (2005): 321. See also Johanna Shapiro et al., "The Use of Creative Projects in a Gross Anatomy Class," Journal for Learning through the Arts 2, no. 1 (2006): 3. 3 Jane Louise William, "Don't Discuss It," 66. |
