Medical Colleges Send Animal Parts To Students Home For Online Dissections
Study from home medical students are being sent animal parts to learn dissections
It is no news that in this COVID-19 pandemic, students now are studying from home with the help of video-conferencing apps.
And studying from home goes on just fine when you¡¯re learning about something theoretical. However, if it's something practical, it becomes a little tricky to learn.
Lafayette College
Take for example doctors or biology students learning dissection. Students learn this in labs with access to body parts. Professors in institutions are on their toes, teaching kids the right way to make incisions and looking at elements inside. Teaching this on a video call can get really tricky. And even getting the parts for dissection isn¡¯t as simple as a grocery order online. However, it looks like Lafayette College has got this figured out.
Reported first by Futurism, Neuroscience Majors Students from Professor Luis Schettino¡¯s Physiological Psychology 2 class were actually sent body parts of animals, -- specifically preserved sheep brains -- for dissection. Medical students from the college have been sharing images and videos of these packages on social media.
Lafayette College
Schettino explained that these are the next best thing to human brains and helps to simulate how the human brain could possibly feel like while dissecting it.
Professor Luis Schettino said in a statement to Futurism, ¡°To be honest, there is no substitute for having the students be all within the lab where we can communicate more directly and I can be sure I am showing them the location of the [brain] structures in person rather than through video, What I mean is that this is, of course, a second-best solution.¡±
People concerned about hygiene and germs would be happy to know that the packages are properly sterilised and with the package is a careful set of instructions guiding students to gear up appropriately before opening the package, as well as guiding them to dispose of properly once the experiment is done.
Another institute -- the University of Arizona -- sent its students, body parts for dissection including a sheep¡¯s brain, cow¡¯s eyeball and an entire fetal pig, along with a set of tools and instructions.
Julie Taraborelli/TikTok
Julie Taraborelli, a student who received this package shared her experience with CBC, ¡°Honestly, I thought it was going to be a fake dissection kit, maybe plastic or something like a toy that you can learn from. I didn't know it was going to be real.¡±
Yes, it does look disgusting to someone not from the medical field and one would definitely not want to make their dining or study table into an operating table. But looks like desperate times call for desperate measures.
