Cadavers trip shows medical opportunities

Hannah Heger, Features Editor

Most students have not seen a dead body, let alone interacted with the organs and muscles of a human body.

The students in Accelerated Anatomy and Physiology got to attend the Kansas State University cadaver lab. This opportunity allowed many students to get close to a human cadaver, explore the inside of the body and learn about anatomy in a physical way.

“It’s something that I’m really interested in and I’m just fascinated by that kind of stuff,” Grace Warner, junior, said. ”I’m fascinated by anatomy and just like the human body.”

The students were split into groups with one in the cadaver room where they got to examine the cadaver.

“[The teacher] said that we could look and touch anything we wanted to,” Emily Ward, sophomore, said. “We asked her tons of questions and she had answers for all of them.”

After the group was finished with their time they learned about individual organs.

“One of the teachers had different organs from the cadavers on trays,” Ward said.

“She showed us all of them, asked us questions and let us hold them and ask our own questions.”

This chance to interact with cadavers was a rare opportunity for high schoolers and it gave them insight into the medical field. It gave them an outlook at what a future career could look like.

“I think everybody needs to have that experience, whether you’re going into a medical field or not,” Grant Terril, junior, said.”Just to say you can you know, … say you’ve actually had that experience.”

Just seeing the cadavers could be a deciding factor for many students who are considering joining the medical field. Many medical schools involve cadavers for their program and will have to later interact with the body.

“I would think anybody who’s considering medicine, not that all of my students are considering medicine as a career. But a good chunk of them are. And so that’s one of the reasons I don’t require the cadaver trip,” Craig Ackerman, Accelerated Anatomy and Physiology teacher, said. “It’s purely voluntary, but I assume if you’re one of my students, and you’re thinking about being in medicine, medical career, there’s a good chance you’re going to work on those cadavers at the college level.”

“It wasn’t traumatic or anything but it helped me realize that maybe medicine isn’t what I want to do,” Ward said. “I thought it was great and interesting, just not for me”