Clueless Interview - Spring 2017

What happens to us when we die? As for our conscious minds, we may never know, but as for our bodies, normal customs typically include a burial or cremation; However, a select few opt to have their own bodies used for the good of science and education long after their mind and souls, depending on what you believe, have left flesh and blood.

Every academic year the science department at Chemeketa Community College is granted four human bodies, properly known as cadavers, for human anatomy and physiology students to dissect as well as from which to learn. Cynthia Prentice-Craver has been a human anatomy and physiology instructor at Chemeketa since 1994, and says that since the implementation of the cadaver lab in 2011, it would be difficult to go back to only dissecting cats, because in her opinion, so much more can be learned from the human body.

At the end of spring term, the four cadavers that have been used for the previous academic year are interchanged with four new cadavers that have not yet been used for dissection. The cadavers that Chemeketa uses are granted by Oregon Health and Sciences University, and every part of the body, including skin and muscle tissue, must be accounted for in order for Chemeketa to continue receiving them as part of their grant. Stored on separate tables in a cool room with cameras focused on each table, the bodies are dissected in classrooms that have been specifically designed for such a purpose, with proper ventilation ensuring moist conditions for the cadavers so that they do not deteriorate. The footage from the cameras in the storage room can be directed to a screen in the classroom for larger lectures which do not require hands-on learning.

The first class to use the cadavers always occurs during the summer term, right after the new cadavers have been delivered and the old ones taken back by OHSU. Students have had to complete prior dissection and anatomy courses in order to be eligible for the cadaver dissection course over the summer. The class is divided into four groups, with one cadaver being assigned to a group. The bodies are kept in large plastic bags, which are laid out over a dissection table and opened so that the cadaver doesn’t touch the table directly. Two groups face their cadaver upwards, while the other two start with their cadaver face down. The purpose of this is to explore the different tissues or organs on each side of the body.

The instructor of the summer course decides what exactly the students are going to cover, or dissect, but every few class sessions the groups switch cadavers so that they can see variations between bodies and explore different areas.

For dissection of the heart, students use a small electric saw to cut through a portion of the collarbone, or clavicle, and move downwards on either side of the most upward part of the rib cage, known as the anterior part of the thoracic cage. This creates one solid section of bone and muscle on the front of the cadaver which can then be taken out. Skin and muscle that are not attached to the rib cage are flapped outwards, but instead of having two rather large areas of skin flapped back, the skin is sliced three times a few inches apart on either side in order be moved around easier.

If there are two groups of students focusing on the heart, then typically one group will dissect the more outer portions of the heart and explore blood vessels, while the other group will open up the heart itself. The group looking at surrounding blood vessels will leave the heart itself intact, cutting the top portion of the the aorta, which connects to the heart and disperses blood throughout the body. The sac that the heart is kept in, known as the pericardium, is cut and kept as well. In order to find coronary blood vessels, this group must use small scalpels and knives extremely carefully to start at the aorta, cutting the fat and muscle tissue around the vessels without cutting the vessel itself. “It’s kind of like you are following a rope, except it is much smaller and more intricate than that,” says Prentice-Craver. Every person’s blood vessels differ slightly in shape and size, which makes cutting them out a rather tedious process. The group looking inside the heart is able to use a less precise knife to slice through the soft tissue and cut the organ in half, allowing a view of its interior.

Chemeketa’s science department receives a ‘cause of death’ for each cadaver, but sometimes this cause is described in general terms that do not specifically state a cause. One example is a “failure to thrive” cause of death, which essentially means dying of old age and not due to one specific long-term issue such as heart disease or COPD. In some instances, the cause of death will be obvious to students, such as lungs appearing black due to years of smoking or heart valves being exceptionally stiff from congestive heart failure. A cadaver’s previous medical history and surgeries are not included, and in one instance Prentice-Craver recalls dissecting a woman’s abdominal/reproductive area only to find that she had not uterus, as it had been taken out years earlier.

After each class session of using the cadavers, the bodies are carefully put back together so that every organ and section of skin and muscle is in the same spot as it would be prior to dissection. The cadavers are then wrapped in a sheet which has been soaked in a special preservative substance that keeps the bodies moist, preventing mold from growing. The cadavers are then zipped back up in the bags that they are originally laid out in, and carried on a gurney back to the storage area.

One of the most interesting aspects of having students dissect cadavers, according to Prentice-Craver, is that many times the students will feel a sense of ownership and pride over the first body they dissect, and will be even more careful when putting the body back together than they are in later dissections. Chemeketa is poised to continue receiving cadaver grants from OHSU into the foreseeable future.