Well, we didn’t even consider that there would ever be a problem like this!
According to a report by the New Straits Times, there has been a lack of cadavers for use in medical research and dissections for medical students. This is reportedly due to the recent influx in medical and dental institutions all over the country.
Hospital Kuala Lumpur National Institute of Forensic Medicine director Datuk Dr Mohd Shah Mahmood recently stated that these preserved corpses were important for trainee doctors to thoroughly understand the human anatomy and it’s something that textbooks cannot teach.
Source: Newcastle University
He told the press at the launch of the Handling of Cadaver for Teaching and Learning Purposes: The Islamic Perspectives seminar at Faculty of Economics and Muamalat University Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM),
“Human cadavers have been widely used for anatomy teaching and medical training around the world. For doctors in training, appreciation of the architecture of the human body is essential in the application and practice of medicine.”
He added that now, cadavers are much harder to come by since it is getting more costly to preserve them. This causes more difficulty for medical schools to teach their students in a way that helps them apply what they learned in class.
“This scenario has further deteriorated by the steep increase in the number of medical institutions in the country,” he continued.
Source: Study in China
Because of this, institutions have tried exploring different options like developing computerised imaging models in anatomy in efforts to teach the subject. However, it still doesn’t replace the real deal. Dr Mohd Shah added,
“…it still can’t replace cadaveric dissection based on the fact that cadavers provide clear visuospatial picture of the human body, real texture of human tissues and to comprehend pathological conditions.”
Because of this, cadavers are being reused for a longer period of time using special processes and procedures.
Perhaps news of this will motivate more people to donate their bodies to science!
Also read: More Medical Specialists in Malaysia Are Resigning From Government Hospitals
