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Comment by danielheath | Hacker News Reader

> most discussions involving cadavers are quite respectful of the fact that they are working on the mortal remains of a person

Not that I know first-hand, but that's not the impression I got from the med students when I was at uni.

People find all sorts of odd ways to cope with their own mortality, and getting reminded of it tends to bring those to the fore.

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Speaking from first-hand, I can't remember any disrespectful behavior. Acting disrespectful toward the donor (what we called the cadavers) would get you kicked out of anatomy lab. There is even a "gift of body" ceremony commemorating the donations every year that family members can attend. Med students will speak about how the donors impacted their medical education and how much they appreciate them.

I would hope that tales of inappropriate jokes of posing with body parts are relegated to a bygone era.

Fwiw I would have no issue donating my body to my institution for dissection. I certainly benefited from the donation. Some notable memories:

- The brittleness and crunchiness of an atherosclerotic artery compared to the pliable rubber hose of a healthy artery

- How incredibly soft lungs are -- like a tempur-pedic pillow. Unless the donor had been a smoker. Then the lungs were hard and black-spotted like a pumice stone.

- The muscular atrophy of old age. There were some donors whose abdominal muscles were as thin as paper.

- Holding a donors brain in one's hand (it's smaller than one would expect). In the words of a lab partner, "I can't believe we are holding everything that made this person a person, all their personality, everything."

> Holding a donors brain in one's hand (it's smaller than one would expect). In the words of a lab partner, "I can't believe we are holding everything that made this person a person, all their personality, everything."

Thought provoking. I'll keep this in mind while holding a hundred billion apples during lunch. ;)

From another angle, I would argue that the eyes and face are part of what makes a human, as are the hands. And there's also something in the brain that has been lost, something beyond mere physical matter. An easy example of this is a puzzle, if you're putting a puzzle together, and I come in and mix it up, I've taken something from you, and yet I took no material object away. There's probably some organization that's part of our brain and "humanity" that is lost at death. I'm not talking about religious "spirit" here - back to the puzzle, it has no spirit, but an assembled puzzle is more than the physical material it is made of.

I don't mean to be super critical of your lab partner, just sharing some additional philosophical views.

> From another angle, I would argue that the eyes and face are part of what makes a human, as are the hands.

I also agree with this take, though in the moment at the lab I didn't interject with a critique of mind-body dualism. Either way, it seems the brain has some sort of primacy over other organs, in terms of contributing to personhood. Pretty much everything else could be lost or transplanted, yet we'd still consider someone the same person. The brain however seems essential in making you you.

A large amount of computation takes place in the gut, largely by the foreign bacteria that make up our gut flora, and the gut has direct lines of two-way communication with the brain. Hence the term "gut feeling".

The brain certainly does a lot of heavy lifting, but I think if you took a person's brain out of their human body and into a robot body instead, they'd probably have dramatic shifts in personality, behavior, thought processes, feelings, worldview, etc. It would probably be on a similar level as those experiments where people use magnetic or electric pulses on their brain or whatever and observe large personality changes.

The comment you're replying to is talking about discussion of the experience (hopefully after the fact). I don't think that they're claiming the bodies are being disrespectfully handled. I'm assuming they're talking about the black humor people use to cope with being surrounded by illness and death.

Mom's a nurse, so it never struck me as odd or mean-spirited. It finally dawned on me when she cracked a joke in response to a question grandma asked about a work story mom was telling at a family get-together. It went over grandma's head, thankfully. It was a pretty good pun, but I think that was the first time I realized that not everyone is used to that sort of talk.

Also speaking from first hand I remember quite a bit of "disrespect". Jokes were outright common. The vast majority of interactions were respectful of course -- its hard work studying anatomy after all. But TBH many folks in medicine can be quite callous, which I find not unrelated to the task at hand (i.e. dealing with the crazy and brutal facts of us all being mushy living creatures at a much higher rate than most people). Standing in a room full of dead bodies being dissected... isn't really normal. And it takes a toll.

> TBH many folks in medicine can be quite callous

Pretty much. Med school seems to have this sinister ability to destroy part of your humanity.

First-hand, every session that involved cadavers during medical school was very respectful. We were told not to take photos as well. Worst part was the smell of formalin. Humour is fine, assuming the person/cadaver would have been okay with it (and quite a few of the older patients I've met joke about their mortality). But I would rather be respectful and play it safe.

Does very respectful mean no dark humor?

My experience was that boisterous shenanigans, like juggling testicles or something, would absolutely not have been tolerated. Indeed, the mood was somber/business-like enough that no one even dared. On the other hand, a whispered inoffensive remark to your lab partner would be okay. Something this like this would probably be okay:

-- "Be careful not to nick the nerve as you <whatever>"

-- "Opps! Better now?

-- "Yes. In fairness, it's not her biggest problem right now"

Yes — the smell of the formalin!

In 1970-71, my first year at UCLA med school, we spent four (4) hours 4 (four) days a week in the gross anatomy lab.

First semester was below the neck, second semester just the head and neck.

Fascinating; I enjoyed everything about dissecting our (4 students/body) corpse.

The only bad thing was the smell of the formalin: it was SO strong that my eyes would water every session: they/I never got used to it.

My "Grant's Anatomy" textbook, which was propped up on the cadaver tank every session to guide me, still stunk of formalin 40+ years later, so much so that much as I enjoyed having it as a memory of something I did that was really hard, I threw it away around 2010 because it made every closet or cabinet or drawer I put it in reek.

I suspect ventilation in the dissection room (120 students/30 cadavers) 52 years ago was WAY worse than it is today.

I'm surprised I'm not brain dead from inhaling superstrong formalin vapor 16 hours/week x 16 weeks/semester x 2 semesters = for roughly 500 hours that year.

Maybe I am brain dead!

> Worst part was the smell of formalin.

You should eat Serrano ham sandwich afterwards, that just about cures it /s

The formalin smell and hunger are such a weird trip in the lab. Good lunch before was key in my opinion.

Others demanding a "respectful" treatment, usually mean, that handling, diposal and research on remains, should be treated by a seperate group of persons. One which they usually shun socially, should they ever talk about or discuss there work or parts of it. So the respectful treatment, is actually code for "I do not want to talk about that, or engage with that, unless i must."

Meanwhile, pathology is such a interesting science. Especially the quite visual signs of self inflicted decay due to substance abuse or bad living conditions are very hands on. Also the realization, that the body is a self deprecating machine, adapting to all circumstances.

Great german book on famous dead people and the source of there demise: https://www.amazon.de/Woran-sie-wirklich-starben-Pers%C3%B6n...

My brother, when he attended his anatomy classes, told me the med students were very playful and joked all the time. A coping mechanism, perhaps? I think it's understandable, but respectful they were not.

For example, they called one of the corpses "blondie"... and she was headless. Let that one sink in.

Interesting that the stories about disrespectful behavior are always a friend of a friend and not the medical students themselves. I suspect a majority of these second hand stories of casual disrespect are a combination of a game of telephone and unreliable narrative bluster from young medical students confronting their own mortality for possibly the first time in their lives. Every story from someone with direct experience seems to be respectful.

No. This is first hand experience by my brother during anatomy classes. He was a student and one of the jokers, too. He said this behavior was pretty common, and he took part in it.

Disrespectful/joking behavior behind the scenes is not too rare with doctors, either. I have doctor friends who attest to this, as in, they engage in this behavior (so again, no game of telephone here). Never in front of the patient, since that would be rude and unacceptable, but privately with other physicians? You bet.

You get that this is exactly the scenario I just described, right?

No, how? To you maybe it is (as would ANY anecdote here not directly related by an anatomy student -- and maybe not even then, because what proof do you have that they are telling the truth?), but to me it's not: I spoke with the student directly, and with the doctors in my second example; in both cases, the person I was talking to was directly engaged in the behavior. So not "a friend of a friend".

You are justified in being skeptical, but unfortunately you're not going to find the evidence you seek on HN. By definition, the written word here is not going to be proof enough. If the topic interests you enough, I guess you'll have to speak to doctors and students directly?

I had overheard some dentists joking recently, that was so discussing than even proctologists couldn't say such jokes.

I went to medical school. I saw this firsthand many times. It's neither unexpected nor surprising. You are dissecting dead bodies, in a giant room full of dead bodies and you are there for months.

EDIT: I realize I should clarify based on some of the sibling comments... nobody was doing anything obscene with body parts. I'm referring to commentary, jokes, dark humor.

> nobody was doing anything obscene with body parts

Yes, same with my anecdotes. I was talking about dark humor, not doing anything obscene with body parts. I think nobody else mentioned anything obscene, either.

Respect to the cadaver was teached in our first dissection class and not even once any incident like that happened. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of disrespect coming from veterinary students, which brought me some disgust.

What other inanimate objects (that can’t kill us easily, like an industrial press or firearm) do we talk about “respect” for?

I think this is a special case of emotional transference.

I don’t personally see a reason to treat cadavers any differently than any other object in a lab. They’re not people. Do we need to be careful to show respect for our mobile phones? How about our coffee mugs?

> I don’t personally see a reason to treat cadavers any differently than any other object in a lab

Even from a purely consequentialist point of view: if behavior around the cadavers gets out to the public, and the public deems it disrespectful, the public stops donating cadavers, which negatively impacts medical education. Even if you don't personally believe in treating human remains with respect, a huge part of society does, and you have to at least respect that.

I participated in a dissection (ex med tech in the Canadian Forces) and the impression that I got is that the room was filled with respect, with everyone being careful to keep the dignity of the cadavers intact at all time.

If you want to listen to the dark/shady side of the body broker business check out this swindled podcast. These dudes were chopping up bodies and storing parts in buckets, warm coolers, you name it.

It’s quite a listen!

https://swindledpodcast.com/podcast/84-the-body-broker/

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