Cadaver lab

[TXmed]

Just recently started helping with my services cadaver lab training.

Does anyone have any tips or tidbits to help make it interesting? Anything they've seen at another cadaver lab or have done

 

[NomadicMedic]

Put a small Bluetooth speaker in a body. Play screaming sound effects when performing an invasive skill. Hilarity will ensue.

Is that what you meant by making it interesting?

 

[DesertMedic66]

Put a small Bluetooth speaker in a body. Play screaming sound effects when performing an invasive skill. Hilarity will ensue.

Is that what you meant by making it interesting?

Add on some fishing line tied to arms and legs to give it more effect.

 

[Tigger]

Perhaps see if you could get some residents or med students to assist with a dissection? Practicing invasive skills is awesome but so is seeing the anatomy and I lack the skill to personally dissect a cadaver.

 

[KingCountyMedic]

We always had our County ME come and walk us through the dissection and exam of everything. We would observe multiple autopsies during Paramedic Training.

 

[E tank]

As an aside, for what it's worth, I've never seen the practical utility of a cadaver lab for anything other than meaningful, in depth study of anatomy and pathophysiology. Certainly not for EMS applications. There is some misguided mystique that somehow learning is better with shriveled up humans swimming in formaldehyde that have been sliced to the point of non-recognition (usually the state of cadavers by the time medic students get to them, exceptions notwithstanding). A pig lab is more useful as the anatomy is at least more life like and recently alive. Cheaper too, all things considered.

I think sometimes cadaver labs are used as a desensitization tool for medics (doesn't work) more than any meaningful study.

 

[NomadicMedic]

The cadaver lab I took part in had fresh bodies and I was able to practice a surgical cric on real anatomy. It was extremely valuable.

 

[DesertMedic66]

The cadaver lab I took part in had fresh bodies and I was able to practice a surgical cric on real anatomy. It was extremely valuable.

This. The yearly cadaver labs my company requires all clinicians to do is with fresh bodies that have not been cut before (at least the parts we need. To save money and since we don’t need a whole body we only get then from the diaphragm up).

I do know there are some very good 3D printable trainers for needle/surgical cric but I still find an actual human body to be the most realistic for obvious reasons.

 

[StCEMT]

I found getting to see the anatomy was helpful in reinforcing things. Yeah, touching the meninges didn't really add much more than context to how much bleeds suck. However, getting hands on with organs and blood vessels was good info for trauma. I know I cant say exactly where damage is, but I can get a pretty good feel of where my oh **** meter will fall having been hands on. For me it's just like seeing the internal damage post thoracotomy.

 

[CANMAN]

Just recently started helping with my services cadaver lab training.

Does anyone have any tips or tidbits to help make it interesting? Anything they've seen at another cadaver lab or have done

Agree with most that have already posted on the anatomy portion and surgical airway skills. When I teach in our lab we also use half torso's, but attempt to pull the skin and tissue over the first surgical airway site (using kelly's), and chest tube sites, so you can generally get 2-3 decent attempts per cadaver on those skills.

We also "pop the hood" and do a clamshell thoracotomy at the end and do the anatomy review and such.

One of the most realistic training scenarios I have participated in was when one of our old medical control MD's took a huge leg of steer and shot it with a 30-30. He then plumbed the wound with two liter bags with food coloring and saline, under pressure bags, to be a massive uncontrolled hemorrhage and placed the prop on the sim man. You had had to pack and tourniquet, administer our blood, RSI the patient etc. Ended up being awesome and pretty life like.

 

[joshrunkle35]

The only cadaver labs I’ve done were for a college Anatomy course. Typically the course heads had a PhD/MD and then all of the lab assistants had a Master’s/PhD(c). We just did in depth review of each system. Tests were usually a walk around the room and there were pins in things and you had to identify names of what bones/joints/ligaments/muscles/foramen/blood vessel/tissue type or whatever else was identified.

I only had pig labs for airways in medic school. We never used human cadavers. I wish we could have. I would have liked to have practiced cricothyrotomy or needle decompression on pleural spaces. Humoral head IOs would be good too.

 

[CANMAN]

The only cadaver labs I’ve done were for a college Anatomy course. Typically the course heads had a PhD/MD and then all of the lab assistants had a Master’s/PhD(c). We just did in depth review of each system. Tests were usually a walk around the room and there were pins in things and you had to identify names of what bones/joints/ligaments/muscles/foramen/blood vessel/tissue type or whatever else was identified.

I only had pig labs for airways in medic school. We never used human cadavers. I wish we could have. I would have liked to have practiced cricothyrotomy or needle decompression on pleural spaces. Humoral head IOs would be good too.

Many labs use pigs because they are MUCH less expensive. A human torso isn’t cheap now a days.