EXPLORING THE HUMAN IN THE DISSECTION ROOM

Abstract

This article presents an exploration of human aspects in a dissection room. Through an ethnographic research study along seven academic years (2005-2012), we aim to better understand what happens when healthcare students enter a dissection room for the first time. A procedural study of their reactions (verbal and non-verbal) was conducted in order to get a clear picture of what happens in this setting. The observation of a dead dismembered human body involves no longer seeing the body in the terms it had been considered so far but in a new light brought by a different perception of human nature, a break experienced through the senses that involves some emotions. That is to say, all the transcendental changes that take place there are due to a sufficiently powerful experimentation setting in which human sensitivity is exposed and transformed.