Conditioned Canine Cadavers for Near-Natural Interprofessional Veterinary and Human Surgery Training

This article covers studies of near-natural interprofessional training in veterinary and human surgery using conditioned canine cadavers. Both medical and veterinary students find the use of cadavers essential for learning anatomical structures and surgical techniques. The use of human cadavers and the resulting user sentiments are driven by serious ethical issues that are currently much less pronounced in veterinary education. Ethically sourced dog carcasses are therefore more readily available. However, aesthetics such as smell and visual appearance affect both the student's and the teacher's motivation.

Thomas Eriksen, Jan Viberg Jepsen & Magnus Petur Bjarnason have investigated a way to delay carcass decomposition by post mortem in situ, chemical-free gastrointestinal lavage. They are convinced that canine cadavers will improve the outcome of cadaver-based surgical skills training by facilitating preparation, reducing the number of cadavers required, delaying decomposition, improving the surgeon's haptic-tactile response to organ and tissue handling and suturing, and, possibly most importantly, increasing students' and teachers' focus due to the significantly improved aesthetics.

They hypothesize that skill transfer for medical students and physicians, due to the similar abdominal anatomy, may be easier when training with conditioned dog cadavers compared to artificial simulators or pigs in vivo.