Pa. Boy Faints at Sight of Cadaver's Arm ...5th graders

[ElsewheresDaughter]

hey parents he coulda been a gynocologist....ok kiddies lets play a game of "Operation"...gessssssh

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A844-2004Jan8.html


PITTSBURGH - A doctor's idea of show and tell - opening up a cadaver arm in front of fifth-graders for a lesson in anatomy and art - caused one student to faint and made others feel sick from the smell of formaldehyde.

Some parents complained to a board member at the Fox Chapel Area School District. School officials Thursday said they would look into the matter.

The limb was brought in Tuesday by Dr. Michael Horowitz, a neurosurgeon whose children attend Fairview Elementary School in Fox Chapel, a well-to-do suburb about five miles east of Pittsburgh.

Horowitz, whose son was in the classroom, was using the arm as a visual aid for a discussion on the 1875 Thomas Eakins painting "The Gross Clinic," which shows a surgeon removing diseased bone from a patient's thigh. A 19th-century art critic called the work "a picture that even strong men find it difficult to look at long, if they can look at it at all."

[frylock]

1. link to "the gross clinic" in case anyone is curious..

by todays standards, it's not much to get worked up about. Of course, seeing the actual painting is probably quite a different experience.

.html

[BiggJawn]

4. Thanks, I must be a "strong man".

Now, watching a film of a bowel re-section, now THAT'S something!

[frylock]

6. lol.. i felt the same way..

of course, I'm a big fan of Robt. Williams, so I suspect my constitution is a little stronger than most in regards to art.

[burrowowl]

8. What is gross is the lack

of cleanliness, let alone sterilization.

[DoctorMyEyes]

15. ack!

I didn't know the name of that painting, but I remember it from my childhood. Totally, totally FREAKED me out when I was a kid!

ewwwwwwww...... I got the shivers all over again. uck

[DebJ]

somehow this isn't what I expected at well-to-do schools!!!

[Occulus]

16. now, wait...

I would think this kind of experience is exactly what our kids are missing out on. Think of it- I don't know about you, but when I was a kid and saw for the first time things under my skin moving around when I moved my fingers, I was pretty curious what it was.

An open cadaver dissection- or part of one- might be an excellent learning tool for art and anatomy. One kid fainting isn't all that big a deal, if it wasn't due to the fumes- grown men are known to faint during their first autopsy. It's a perfectly normal reaction.

I bet they could have used better ventilation, though, like a ceiling hood directly over the experiment area as some school science labs are equipped with. I'm betting that's the parents' biggest complain, were you to go ask all of them. It would be mine, were my kid affected and the ventilation wasn't adequate. Those fumes are nasty.

[Sparkle]

2. Whatever happened to dead frogs?

n/t

[Lefta Dissenter]

5. and cow eyes!

Now THAT's COOL! :crazy:

edited to clarify that I'm saying that the cow eyes are cool, NOT the man's arm. I don't think I'd be able to handle that, either, and I was raised by a zoologist and worked for a vet!

[arikara]

13. Keep away from cow's eyes

BSE. Formaldehyde doesn't kill it. Nothing kills it.

[Lefta Dissenter]

14. OK, well I think it's been

a good 25 years since I've dissected a cow's eye, but it's a good reminder, nonetheless.

:crazy: (You've got to admit it's the perfect smiley, though)

[frogfromthenorth2]

7. Hey, I'm not dead yet! And my brothers don't like dissections!

[Ilsa]

3. Let's desensitize them early.

It makes it easier for them to see blown off parts in Iraq, etc.

I do NOT allow my kids to watch graphic violence on tv or movies. I would be mortified if my kids saw something like this at school without my permission first. Children need time in their lives for innocence, not graphic science. What's next, proctological and gynecological exams in preschool?

[chookie]

9. This is good science, but not all are up to it

Mind you, I have long worked in a museum environment, have done lots of dissections, handled cadavers, plus do medical illustruation, so this sort of thing doesn't bother me at all. I can eat lunch while I watch an autopsy. None of this stuff has "horror" value for me, nor does it for science professionals. This does not mean we disrespect the dead, or lack compassion; we're merely focusing on the scientific aspects.

I see nothing wrong with this school lesson, although I can appreciate that not everyone is prepared to deal with this sort of thing, and perhaps it should have been handled differently.

I mentor young girls interested in careers in medicine and biology, and although they are this age, they certainly do not get upset when presented with cadavers and can watch operations, etc. They think its really cool, certainly not ghoulish or scary, and they are very well emotionally adjusted. It is not inappropriate. However, I understand that other people do not have this sort of grounding, and imbue corpses or medical procedures with a sense of dread and horror, and one has to be sensitive to their inability to adequately cope with this sort of thing.

Someone posted here something I gravely disagree with -- that children should be shielded from death and kept innocent of it, and thought it was designed to desensitize them from horrors of war, etc. I think that is a very wrong conclusion. Some kids will decide to undertake careers that will heal victims of violence -- like the wounded children of Iraq -- and they will never begin to do so until they can confront their fears of "gory images" so one day they can stand there in the operating room, staring at that maimed child, and get down to the business of repairing the wound or saving the life of the victim, without squeamishness or emotionalism. Please do not equate anatomy lessons to bombing innocent people.

[kutastha]

10. Bizarre.

Though in my gross anatomy class even 20 year-olds got a little woozy, (the formalin can make one dizzy, and oddly enough, hungry). I know I probably would have thought it was cool at 10 y.o., but that's just strange.

I'm curious if the doc had permission to bring the arm.

[Demonaut]

11. LOL

gotta give a hand to the Doc, probably will be kept at arms length from the school though.

[DulceDecorum]

12. Show & Tell

was WAAAY difernt when I was in elementary school.

How did that doctor come by that arm?
And how did he transport it to the school?
Did he fill out the requisite paperwork?
And what the heck is Homeland Security doing letting body parts wander around
when beta fish must die?
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03362/255283.stm

[Lostmessage]

17. What happened to your favorite Toy?

We use to take our favorite toy to show and tell. I once took my Pug Puppy to show and tell when I was a kid and I didn't get into trouble but taking a cadaver arm to show and tell now that's disgusting.

[0rganism]

18. Later that day, the kids went home to their PlayStation2s and X-boxes...

...and beheaded many a computer-generated opponent in acceptibly exciting games like SoulCaliber and Halo.