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I was just wondering if anyone has ever refused to dissect an animal for either their A&P or Microbiology class? I'm taking A&P next semester and I'm hoping I won't have to dissect an animal. It's not that I'm afraid; it just goes against what I believe. (Growing up loving all animals, being vegetarian, and knowing how many of the animals end up on tables for dissection). Can anyone relate? If I come across this situation, how can I go about it? How do I ask the teacher if I can opt out?
Yeah...I'm also veg and keep all kinds of critters around the house...but I still did dissection as required. You'll learn
in nursing school to wisely pick your battles, and quite frankly I don't think this is one of them. There are much
"grosser" things in nursing...like trach secretions, C. diff stool, and draining abscesses.
Besides, you will gain lots of information from mammal anatomy you can apply to humans. What do a normal
liver and heart look like vs. one that is diseased? Especially relevant if you ever want to be an OR nurse.
What does a vein feel like? Important for starting IVs and assessing fluid status.
Much of assessment is hands on. You can identify many "not quite right"
things from your sense of touch. Does my patient feel hot vs. cold? Skin moist vs. dry? How does the range of motion
feel in a joint? Any palpable organs? Hard abdomen? Squishy feet that can indicate peripheral edema? Etc.
Your best hope is going to be an understanding lab partner. Who does the cutting isn't important....it's what you learn once its cut. Are you ok with learning from a dead cat, just not cutting it open personally?
Of course, you aren't actually saving a life by not holding the scalpel as I'm sure you know. And at some point we'll probably all have to do things we don't agree with for the sake of our careers, so this may be as good a time as any to get used to it. The people in my nursing class who don't believe in vaccinations aren't excused for giving them.
Trust me, OP, I'm right there with you. Vegetarian, animal rights activist, no leather, don't believe animals should die to benefit us. I'm fully there.
*** I hope you don't eat organic field crops, especialy rice! I esitemate several tens of thousands dead mammals, birds and anphibians per acre are killed to produce organic rice. Less with wheat, corn and soybeans. I only found an average of only 1.7 dead mammals and birds per square yard x 4840 yards/acre = 8228 dead mammals and birds to produce dry organic field crops like corn, soybeans and wheat.
I used to be an organic dairy farmer shipping to Organic Valley and prefomed the study with a grad student from University of Wisconsin Madison College of Life Sciences.
Compair this to me walking to the field behind my house and shooting a deer.
I love animals and did not want to dissect the cat, but I just had to get into the mind set that this was something we had to do. I just looked at it as the cat was going to be killed regardless of whether we dissected it or not and I just thanked the cat for allowing me to learn. It never really got "easy," but it was really a great experience to see the internal structures and how they all related to each other. We dissected in groups and I am sure there will be someone there who will actually do the dissection and you can just observe or take notes.
I attended an accredited 4 year university program for my BSN and never dissected anything. We used complex models, human skeletons, that kind of thing. The med students and pre physical therapy students did human cadaver dissection. Which leads me to think that I have been a nurse for over 15years and feel I have a more than adequate understanding of human anatomy and physiology without dissecting animals. I also agree that it would be ideal if the money these schools are spending on the purchase amimals to dissect would go to help the pet overpopulation problem.
A few people have said that the money should be going to pet over population prevention and not to purchasing animals to disect. I really do not see what you are getting at here. The schools, which have finite funding for educational pursuits, should take the money that they would be spending on supplies (in this case, already dead animals that would have died anyway) and put it toward a non educational pursuit to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy? How about donating to the cause out of your own pocket? You could ask the instructor how much they pay per cat and make a donation in furball's name to your local shelter or spay clinic.
I do think there is value to learning through disection. I think it would be more disrespectfull to the animal to have it thrown away unused then to have it be of value after it's death. You can try to get out of it, but i would not reccomend it. No one enjoys cutting into a cat, vegetarian or not. just be respectfull in the process. It will be over and you will be better for having first hand knowlege of anatomy.
I attended an accredited 4 year university program for my BSN and never dissected anything. We used complex models, human skeletons, that kind of thing. The med students and pre physical therapy students did human cadaver dissection. Which leads me to think that I have been a nurse for over 15years and feel I have a more than adequate understanding of human anatomy and physiology without dissecting animals. I also agree that it would be ideal if the money these schools are spending on the purchase amimals to dissect would go to help the pet overpopulation problem.
So we should dissect shelter animals! Problem solved. :-)
My problem at my school is that the cats come from a cat farm. Too risky to use strays. They need to be sure there are no diseases. So, these cats are bread to be euthanized when they turn one. Makes me sick but I know if I want to pass ill have to do it. Just praying my partner doesn't freak when I'm standing there bawling with a scalpel I. My hand. I'd much rather do a person.
"No day but today"
lilemma
4 Posts
In my anatomy class we used human cadavers, but I would definitely talk to your professor ahead of time and express your concerns and ask where the animals come from. I highly doubt that there is a kitten mill out there that raises cats for dissection , but I could be wrong. Another opition is to take it at another school, if there is one nearby.