Students Dissect Human Cadaver

There are 20 young women in Elizabeth Blanton’s anatomy and physiology class which meets at 7:50 a.m. at Villa Duchesne. When I asked the class which students were planning to become doctors, 10 hands went up. When asked how many plan on pursuing a career in the medical field, nearly all the hands were raised skyward.

In February, half of the 60 students who take this advanced elective upper-level course, spent a day at a laboratory in Brentwood, dissecting a human cadaver. The visit was not mandatory.

Dr. George Paletta of the Chesterfield Orthopedic Center arranged the visit. Paletta is a team physician for the St. Louis Cardinals and parent to junior Sarah Paletta.

The students termed the visit awesome and inspiring. Their cadaver, “Ray” was 70 years old with lung disease; he was a smoker. He also had diabetes.

“I really like doing things like this, working on the body and stuff. I got to cut on the lower form of the body, working on tendons and things. I’ve seen lots of surgery on television but this was the real thing,” Madeline Haas, a junior said.

“I was really gung ho to do this,” Sarah Paletta said.

Every student had the opportunity to make cuts on the cadaver. The students were in session for nearly three hours that day.

Everything was organized so well, Blanton said. “Dr. Paletta even set up a camera so everyone could watch,” she said.

The girls were amazed by the size of the heart. They thought it was the size of a fist, but it just seemed much larger.

Aimee Vanderbeck, a senior, headed to Loyola University in Chicago next semester was amazed by the whole venture. Mackenzie Hynes, a junior, was too. “I got to dissect a portion of the leg. Dr. Paletta showed us an ACL procedure. We learned so much,” Hynes said.

Probably the only obstacle to overcome was the stench of formaldehyde. The smell was strong and difficult to get past, said Blanton.

There was a gradual building up to working on an actual human body. Students had previously dissected a brain, a heart and an eye in their living laboratory. Students have been working on their classroom skeleton “Wall-E.”

Alex Fox, another student, said her friends said this was disgusting. She couldn’t disagree more. "This was the coolest thing I’ve ever done. I got to cut into the veins, the arteries. This was way cool,” Fox said.