I hated cat dissection!!! Will I hate nursing?!

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Okay, so we just dissected cats in my A&P I class. We literally had to skin the cat, and then tear its little body apart to look at its muscles. I could handle it, for the most part, but I REALLY didn't like it. Not even remotely enjoyable for me. Does this say anything about how I would fare in the nursing profession? I've done really well in the class so-far, and even kind-of liked it, but this was pretty off-putting. Any advice would be appreciated!

Our cadavers started out intact and we did all the work. New cadavers with every new class.

Our prof was insistent on treating them with respect. Some students were chosen at the end of class to help transfer the bodies to a mortuary for cremation.

steph

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In short, no. Cat dissection is just something you have to go through to get to nursing school, it doesn't mean you will hate the profession.

I looooved my high school A&P class (it made me want to be a nurse) and the dissections were actually my favorite part! :chuckle I guess I'm kind of an oddball in that respect. However, we just had to dissect the cat, not skin it. That part might have gotten to me.

One time, our teacher ordered sheep hearts to dissect. The hearts were actually still enclosed in the large fatty sacs (I believe it is called the pericardium if I remember correctly). Anyway, it was so gross that he made that lab extra credit, so no one had to do it. But I did it anyway, even though I had to cut off all that nasty fat, and it was my favorite dissection. :chuckle Up until that point, I was loving the class but I didn't think that I could "stomach" being a nurse. I guess that proved that I definitely could!

But I would not say that you would hate being a nurse because you hated cat dissections. I knew a guy who couldn't stand bodily fluids AT ALL but he really wanted to be a nurse so he could help people. He's a nurse now and loves it, body fluids and all! :chuckle Anyway, this post is really long, but my point is you don't have to love everything you do in prereqs or even in nursing school, you just have to be able to tolerate it. There are some things you will NEVER love about nursing, or any career for that matter, but that doesn't mean you will be a bad nurse.

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I thought it was really neat...minus the smell...but don't worry, it won't have any bearing on hating nursing!

I thought so too...something like preparing a chicken for a dinner :lol2:

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Specializes in Cardiac Care.

I would NOT do an A&P class where we had to disect (skin) a cat. I am not looking to be a vet so I don't see the point. I went to see a Body Worlds exhibit and thought it amazing but am not to keen on the idea of actual disection. After all we are not going to be surgeons. I've seen slides on my virtual cd of the rat heart and the dead cat. But I am pretty much against animal use for students taking a simple A&P I class.

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We also had sheep eyeballs and beef hearts.

steph

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Okay, so we just dissected cats in my A&P I class. We literally had to skin the cat, and then tear its little body apart to look at its muscles. I could handle it, for the most part, but I REALLY didn't like it. Not even remotely enjoyable for me. Does this say anything about how I would fare in the nursing profession? I've done really well in the class so-far, and even kind-of liked it, but this was pretty off-putting. Any advice would be appreciated!

lucky for you, nurses don't skin cats; and even if we did...well there's more than one way to do it... :clown:

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lucky for you, nurses don't skin cats; and even if we did...well there's more than one way to do it... :clown:

:D:D:D

steph

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Specializes in Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy.
oh my gosh that's horrible! :no: I don't think I could have handled that :(

We didn't have to do all that... the only dissections we had to do was a sheeps eye and a heart (also of a sheep). The instructor did a demo with a calf pluck (the lungs/heart/trachea of the calf) to show us how the lungs inflated...but I guess I dodged a bullet with the cat dissection. (but I had done it in high school, so that's totally fine with me).

Hey are we in the same class? So far that's all I did too.

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Okay, so we just dissected cats in my A&P I class. We literally had to skin the cat, and then tear its little body apart to look at its muscles. I could handle it, for the most part, but I REALLY didn't like it. Not even remotely enjoyable for me. Does this say anything about how I would fare in the nursing profession? I've done really well in the class so-far, and even kind-of liked it, but this was pretty off-putting. Any advice would be appreciated!

We dissected cats in Anatomy recently. Last Friday I held a bucket while someone threw up, dealt with bloody chux pads, and other similar stuff while volunteering at the hospital.

I'll take holding the vomit bucket any day, and I'm inclined to think it's more relevant.

I think I would have dealt better with human cadavers than with the cats. At least the humans chose to donate their bodies to science, and weren't just killed for the purpose of being dissected by anatomy students.

I guess it also depends on where your specialty will be. If the dissections bother you, maybe actually being in the OR won't be your cup of tea, but some other aspect of nursing will.

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I have had no dissections in anatomy. My professor said dissecting other animals will just confuse you to the placement in the human body, so you will not do a dissection.:bow:

We have to do it, and I'm FREAKING out!!! I would LOVE to go to that school where you went!!! Sounds great to me!

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While I'm looing forward to starting school this fall, I'm hoping that the disecting is kept to a minimum. The only disecting I've done was in high school physics with a cow's eye. The baby pigs that we were supposed to disect in my biology class got lost!

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You don`t have to participate in the cat or other animal dissection if you don`t want to. You have the right to ask for an alternative. Many states already have enforced policies for student`t right to choose for an alternative to dissection without being penalized. Speak up as soon as you find out that the class requires dissection. Ask for an alternative and be persistent! The courts interpret it as a religious right and this can be the base for a legal case. If it goes against your belief system just talk to your instructor and the chairperson of the department. I doubt that they would want to drag it to court because they are violating your rights. A call from an attorney usually works out the issue.

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