Anatomy disections

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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I spoke with a nurse who has been in the field for 20 years. She informed me that she took anatomy and the anatomy lab. The lab consisted of dissecting animals. Are computers used for this now or anatomical models used today? If so, is this taken for an LPN program? Thank you.

Depends entirely on the program/school. My A&P class used actual animals, but I've heard of other programs that use computer models. You would need to talk to each college to see.

Yeah, we dissected a sheep eye, sheep brain and then a rat.

We dissected a rat first (for gross organ anatomy), then the sheep brain and then the sheep eye all in A&P1. So far we're using display skeletons, some plastic some real in A&P2.

Please don't think that this is a stupid question, but was A & P taught in LPN courses? I think I might be ok with dissecting parts of animals (without seeing the entire animal).

It depends on your program. Our LPN program has the students complete a single A&P course. You may not do ANY disection, or you may learn on pre-disected preserved specimines. When I took A&P 10 years ago, we learned on preserved cats. The A&P I described above is the course I'm currently taking, but it's a 2 part class.

Specializes in Vascular Access.

We had two cadavers, a male and female. I have a friend attending a rural college and they dissected an animal.

I could do a cadaver; maybe an animal. Thank you.

Like others have mentioned, it largely depends on the program/school you are attending and what their budget allows. When I took the first semester of A&P for my ADN prerequisites, we did not have enough cats to dissect and had to rely on lab models, pictures, and videos made by my professor for previous sections. When I took the second semester, we dissected a sheep brain and heart. The cats we used were already dissected so our main focus was being able to identify various structures.

I would recommend looking into the requirements for the program or programs that interest you. From there, look at the course catalog and try to find a syllabus. Sometimes you can find what you will be doing. Also, try reaching out to someone in the program or someone who is taking the requirements/course. I honestly can not even begin to say how thankful I am for knowing people ahead of me or meeting people through the process of taking classes who have given me amazing advice for certain classes and professors. I definitely give them credit for helping to pave my path for success. Best wishes!

I thought that this was funny (the rest of the parents didn't). My wife and I were attending our son's grade 9 orientation a couple of years ago. The science teacher wanted to remind us parents how much we liked science. He said, "When you think of science in high school, what do you think of? Dissecting, right? Because it was fun." I said it was traumatic for some. I asked if they now used computer model for dissecting now. He said that many schools do, but they did use candavers. He continues to say, "But with cadavers, if you make a mistake, the next preson to work with it may not learn everything there is to learn from that cadaver." I asked, "Why would you pass it on? Don't you get a fresh supply everyday?" The teacher tried not laugh, but I think that the other parents thought my questions were morbid.

I would have been fighting back a chuckle myself. During my lab my group had some experience with working with animals for dissection that previous classes got a little too carried away with. It is quite difficult looking for something that has either been cut or removed entirely. My professor got a lot of, "Is this what I think it might is?" More often than not it was missing or cut in two. Fortunately, we rotated the animals we used and my classmates all made sure to help each other out as much as possible.

At my community college we dissected cats and a sheep brain. We used plastic models for anything else we needed to go over.

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