Medics worried by lack of dead bodies

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - When Austin Hymas got his first chance to dissect a full human body, he had to share it with five fellow trainee doctors.

The 19-year-old first-year medical student says he was fascinated by what he was able to do and see, but worries he will never get enough time to dissect properly and learn the intricacies of a full human cadaver.

"Dissection in medical schools has been cut dramatically," Hymas told Reuters in an interview. "We have only done four weeks of dissection in the whole year, whereas only 10 years ago, they probably would have done a whole term on each limb."

Many medical schools in Britain now use pro-sections -- prepared body part samples which have been pre-dissected by a tutor and which the students are allowed to examine. Increasingly few get hands-on experience of proper dissection.

The problem, in part, is that there simply aren't enough bodies to go around.

According to medical authorities, Britain needs around 1,000 bodies a year for use in training medical students and conducting scientific research.

In London alone, which has been the hardest hit by the lack of body donations, experts are forecasting a shortfall of around 40 per cent in the number of bodies needed by the capital's five medical schools and the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS).

Vishy Mahadevan, professor of surgical anatomy at the RCS, which teaches specialised post-graduate courses for those wishing to become surgeons, says his school currently has to "get by" with 60 to 65 bodies a year.