Teaching anatomy has seen some changes in many medical schools since this past decade. It used to be sessions spent with cadavers and medical students having to slice them up. Now anatomy is much cleaner. Models take the place of cadavers where structures are beautifully outlined. Conservative anatomy lecturers would scorn at this new concept mentioning that plastic models looks anything but the real thing. "New Age" lecturers will say that teaching only the essentials will suffice for doctors. With an ever expanding syllabus, "new age" lecturers may have a valid point. Cadavers are the real thing but looks(and feels) nothing like a living body! Many medical schools are now teaching clinical anatomy, ie anatomy that relates to everyday clinical practice (living bodies that is!). The old days of learning every nook and crany of the human body is becoming obsolete. Most would forget them after the 3rd year anyway. But would this make new medical graduates weaker in the field of anatomy?

Cadavers are also becoming a scarce resource. Not many people are willing to donate their bodies for science these days. More so with increasing cases of cadaver mismanagement like the recent case in UCLA. Are these bodies eventually going to be given a respectable burial? What happens to them? No one really knows. This problem appears more acute in Malaysia, where most families will even refuse a post mortem, let alone manipulation by medical students. The emergence of unknown viruses has also indirectly given cadavers less appeal.

However, models are surprising extremely expensive unlike their cadaveric counterparts. It is also less exciting. Some medical students thrive on scalpels and raw flesh! THis leaves no room for the faint hearted and those who are compulsively clean. Models are like still photographs while cadavers resemble moving pictures. Or perhaps Netter's Atlas of Anatomy will suffice!

There is little doubt that cadaver-based teaching is losing support. But are we going in the right direction? Perhaps in this computerised era, there is little need for a cadaver or a plastic model. Virtual reality could fill future classrooms where medical students can perform surgeries on live patients! Anatomy would be so much fun then, seeing beating hearts as we learn the layers that surround this ticker. hmmm..

Perhaps being an anatomy lecturer would be more fun and appealing in future. But in the meantime, plastic models rule as cadavers relinquish their throne.