Refusing to dissect in A&P or Microbiology?

[joel.mercado]

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?

[hodgieRN]

I understand your concerns with dissecting an animal that you can at home as a companion. As said before, not every A&P class has cat dissection. It was weird for me when I first did it, but one I start dissecting, I saw past the cat as a whole and start seeing the anatomy. Sometimes, there's a little better disconnect when it's just an organ. (Don't mean to be blunt) but it's probably more difficult when there a head attached to it. If you have the chance to dissect an animal, it's an opportunity to see everything first hand as it connects and runs throughout the body. It not barbaric. I've heard people say they would be more comfortable dissecting a human cadaver than an animal. I think some people feel more pity for animals than humans. You could be missing out on an opportunity. Would you feel more comfortable if it was a rat or a pig? You have to step back and look at it as a learning tool. In nursing, there are times where you have to disconnect yourself so you can do your job. It's easy to feel sorrow or feel really uncomfortable when you first start putting in foleys, but you have to do it. You look at it from an objective point of view.

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

I was curious as to how animals were selected for dissection, and I came across this:

Q: What states have dissection laws, resolutions or policies?

A: The following states have laws upholding a student's right to choose humane alternatives to dissection without being penalized: Florida, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, New Jersey and Vermont. Student-choice legislation is currently pending in Connecticut. Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Mexico have Board of Education policies, and Louisiana passed a state resolution in 1992. Many schools and school boards have also independently enacted student-choice policies. Questions and Answers About Dissection : The Humane Society of the United States

I'll cross my fingers that you live in one of those states!

You are aware these laws only apply to K-12 school students and not post secondary/collegiate students right? (and generally the laws apply only to public K-12 students not private or parochial students) High School and Middle School Students - Dissection Student Choice Laws and Legislation : Animalearn | The Science Bank

As an adult your options are don't dissect, risk the course and possibly not meeting the requirements entry into the nursing program of your choice exchange majors, or you can always trying to discuss what options may be available with the department chair ( but be aware that A&P with lab are mandatory course requirements per the board of nursing in certain states.)

While NJ has the alternative choice option for K-12 students, there is no mandatory alternative choice for college level students taking lab science courses.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

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"

*** While the idea of a cat farm sounds repugnant the fact is that many, many animals die so that you may live your life. It is cause it's cats, normaly a pet animal, that bothers you? Or is it cause you actually have to see the dead animal when usually the animals that die so that you may exsist are hidden?

[P B and J]

We came across this issue in my A&P II lab. One of the girls was a vegan, and wouldn't go anywhere near her groups table. We had fetal pigs in this lab. She'd have to take a phone call, need the restroom, gotta talk to so-and-so, anything but help her group. After getting away with it for a couple of classes, the instructor caught on and told her she had better get over it and help her group or she would be failed. She got over it, finally helped out by just doing the paperwork (as far away as she could get, but the instructor said she HAD to at least be at the table) and passed the class in the end. Although I will say I never saw her again after that, she either changed schools or gave up on nursing altogether... I have no idea.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

A friend told me that in his area there was a big "controversy" (not sure if it actually rose to that level, but the media made it seem like it did) that resident surgeons were learning some of their trauma surgery techniques on pigs. I don't know how the pigs were treated before and after the surgery...heck, I don't even know if they were alive or dead before or after the surgery. Now, if they were mistreated, there should be a discussion on how to more humanely handle the situation; however, if I were in a serious car accident, I would want my trauma surgeon to have some experience, even if that means that he/she "practiced" basic techniques on a pig.

Similarly, I would want my doctor and nurse to have a full A&P experience and I realize that means they dissected a previous living animal.

[rubato, ASN, RN]

What does being a vegetarian have to do with anything? You don't have to eat the animals, only dissect them. They are already dead, they don't kill animals just so students can cut them open.

Well, it depends on why you become a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I don't want to kill a living thing. If I eat it or cut it up to look at it's insides, a life has been taken.

If someone becomes a vegetarian because they don't like the taste of meat, they should have no problem dissecting animals. It just depends on the reasons behind it.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

Well, it depends on why you become a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I don't want to kill a living thing. If I eat it or cut it up to look at it's insides, a life has been taken.If someone becomes a vegetarian because they don't like the taste of meat, they should have no problem dissecting animals. It just depends on the reasons behind it.

You would cause the deaths of fewer animals if you ate meat and were very selective about where you got it.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

So let me get this right. Not doing something I feel strongly against makes me a child? And it's not that I don't think I can do it, it's that I rather not. If I have to do it I will but if I can get "special treatment" and not do it, then I rather not dissect.

No, you're not a child for not doing something you feel strongly about. There are things I feel strongly about not doing too. However, expecting the program to accommodate you because you don't like it is not an adult attitude. An adult would accept the consequences of the choice not to participate in the required activity of the required class and go major in something that doesn't require it. You can't always get what you want.

[SweetCorn]

There are plenty of other students who will gladly participate in dissection so they can get into a nursing program.

I suggest sacking up, participating and getting the required grade or getting out of the way.

[Bouncyball]

Well, it depends on why you become a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I don't want to kill a living thing. If I eat it or cut it up to look at it's insides, a life has been taken.

If someone becomes a vegetarian because they don't like the taste of meat, they should have no problem dissecting animals. It just depends on the reasons behind it.

Not dissecting an animal does not mean you are saving the life of an animal. They are still dead .

[KountryPrincess]

So we should dissect shelter animals! Problem solved. :-)[/quote

Actually, my real point was that you do *not* need to do any animal dissection to have a good working understanding of human anatomy and physiology. The patients whose lives I have saved over the past 15 years can attest to that.

[Sadala, ADN, RN]

They order a cat for every x number of people they have spaces for in the class. So fundamentally, the cst is just as dead either way. But, like many others have said, someone else in the group is usually more than happy to do the cutting.

Personally, I really LIKE cats and so it wasn't as happy an experience as it would have been if we had been dissecting, say... a fetal pig. But I did not think that on some mystical level I was actually killing the cat. The class would have had the same number of spaces regardless of whether or not I had taken it - and thus - the same number of cats.

So you would be protesting to what end? Not saving the life of cat, certainly. You have to learn to pick your fights and take a stand on important things that actually MIGHT make a difference. But I am not a vegetarian, and I don't have an aversion to eating previously living animals. So... maybe I can't fully understand your perspective.