What have you dissected????

inventory of animals i've dissected:

earthworm

cricket

chicken fetus (injected alcohol into this one for a lab experiment)

cat

...and pithed (scrambled the brains but kept it alive) a frog.

(i was a biology major so all these dissections were legitimate. )

so i know what you're feeling. don't worry, it'll pass. just think of all the good you'll do for people with your education.

p.s. we pithed the frog to learn about it's neurophysiology and cardiovascular system.

best wishes!!

Cow eye, sheep brain, fetal pig, sheep heart, pig uterus (complete with a whole passel of teeny piglets) and a frog in junior high. Our school also has cadavers, but students don't dissect. We also had a CD with experiments on it and the beating frog heart was one I watched. It is a neat experiment.

I would also feel weird about sacrificing a frog. I took A&P I in 1994 and didn't take the second semester because I felt guilty about using up a fetal pig when I was an English major.

felt guilty about using up a fetal pig when i was an english major.

i understand if you felt guilty about this b/c you were an english major.

but as for me, i looooove bacon. so it would be sort of hypocritical of me to feel guilty about dissecting a pig. i think i might feel guilty about it at first, like i said above, but i'd get over it. after all, a fetal pig's life doesn't have any more value than an adult pig's life, right?

and the sacrifice of this fetal pig's life would help me get the education i needed to help countless people. so i could live with it.

I like pork chops, but a fetal pig never even got the chance to become pork, so I can work up guilt over one. :)

You are right. This is an important education. And working on 4 cadavers over two semesters has shown me what kinds of internal differences there are between individuals. If I were a member of the science club, I could come watch when the instructors open up the cadavers. Sadly, I haven't had time to join. I'm really tempted to do all sorts of extracurricular activities for a year before submitting my graduation papers, LOL.

i like pork chops, but a fetal pig never even got the chance to become pork, so i can work up guilt over one. :)

you are right. this is an important education. and working on 4 cadavers over two semesters has shown me what kinds of internal differences there are between individuals. if i were a member of the science club, i could come watch when the instructors open up the cadavers. sadly, i haven't had time to join. i'm really tempted to do all sorts of extracurricular activities for a year before submitting my graduation papers, lol.

seriously (not trying to be a butt or anything), but guilt over a fetal pig, yet no mention of guilt over a cadaver?

reallly???

seriously (not trying to be a butt or anything), but guilt over a fetal pig, yet no mention of guilt over a cadaver?

reallly???

nope, no guilt. the cadaver had a long, full life and the choice to be used for science. the fetal pig had neither. at least my pork chops have had a chance to savor the sunlight and wallow in the mud.

nope, no guilt. the cadaver had a long, full life and the choice to be used for science. the fetal pig had neither. at least my pork chops have had a chance to savor the sunlight and wallow in the mud.

no problem. different strokes for different folks, i guess.

i would have more of a moral dilemma of dissecting a person (whose family probably couldn't pay for a proper funeral and therefore donated their body to medical science), regardless of the age, than dissecting an animal.

(i know that all cadavers are not people whose family couldn't pay for a proper funeral, but a significant portion of them are.)

i live in the washington dc area and i see all kinds of suburan do-gooders come from all over the country to march on the mall or in front of the white house several times a year to save the whales, seals, or whatever. and i wonder how much these same people donate to their local homeless shelter, meals-on-wheels or domestic abuse shelter on a regular basis.

i think it has become much more fashionable to want to save something that is furry, cuddly, or given a talking voice in the latest blockbuster movie than to want to save a person.

I think it'd be so interesting to be able to dissect a human cadaver except I just saw the movie Unrest (horror movie about a gross anatomy class) which creeps me out. My A&PII class has us dissecting cats right now. When I was in high school we dissected the usual things such as worms, sheep lung, shark, cat, and a frog.

your scenario never crossed my mind. ours were all well fed and elderly. we were told that the family has to give consent to allow us to use them as cadavers and that afterward the bodies are cremated. the med students have an annual memorial for the people who so kindly shared their bodies. it all seemed very dignified.

fetal pig

sheep eyeball

sheep brain

cow heart

sheep brain

frog (jr high)

earthworm(jr high)

wasn't to bad I rather enjoyed it

I don't think a cadaver would bother me, it just the silly living frog!

Oh I read somewhere that some university has had the same cadaver for the last 10 years. The students just use it to observe. The teacher puts her hand inside the cadaver and pulls on the muscles to show how they move the feet. I think that would be cool, and like I said I had no problem with the cat we just finished up, or the pig, or worm and squid in High School, and I am looking forward to the brain, sheep heart, eyeball...whatever else comes my way. I just looked at my lab book, and the pithed frog is just a demonstration. So maybe I won't feel so responsible!!!