ANATOMY experts are asking the public to consider donating their bodies to science after a rise in the number of medical students caused a cadaver shortage. A cadaver - a human body - is a vital part of future surgeons’ training as it allows them to practice on dead bodies before graduating to the living. 2 Universities are desperate for people to sign up before they sign off for good 2 Cat Irving explained how it works in Scotland But Prof Gordon Findlater, HM Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland , said in a recent report to government ministers that surgical colleges were cancelling university training courses because the demand for corpses was so high.
According to the Scotland Deanery, which is responsible for training doctors , there were 5,930 medical students in the 2023-24 academic year - up from 5,645 the year before and 3,928 in 2015-16. Cat Irving, human remains conservator at Surgeons’ Hall, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh , said: “Cadavers allow surgeons to practice new techniques and refine their skills in a safe environment before performing them on living patients. “This has the benefits over other methods of training, such as VR and computer simulation, in that it gives more realistic feedback, while also allowing the experience of anatomical variation – in the same way that people’s external appearances are unique, our internal anatomy varies from person to person.
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