{"id":7409,"date":"2026-03-02T10:36:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/?p=7409"},"modified":"2026-03-02T16:18:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:18:42","slug":"student-stories-life-in-the-dissection-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/student-stories-life-in-the-dissection-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Stories: Life in the Dissection Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

First year BSc (Hons) student Dong Min Huh shares his experience in the Dissection Room.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

If you asked 100 medical students what the best part of studying Medicine in St Andrews<\/span> is<\/span>, I\u2019d confidently bet that most of them would give the same answer: the opportunity to do full body dissections.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s\u00a0something incredibly different about seeing anatomy in real life,\u00a0not just on slides or diagrams,\u00a0but in three dimensions, right in front of you.\u00a0The\u00a0Dissection\u00a0Room\u00a0(DR)\u00a0is the one place\u00a0that\u00a0you can enter being extremely confused about what you learned over the past\u00a0week\u00a0in lectures\u00a0but\u00a0come out\u00a0with\u00a0newfound understanding and\u00a0confidence, as everything clicks into place. None\u00a0of this would be possible without the extraordinary generosity of local individuals who\u00a0have\u00a0donated their bodies to help train future doctors.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, walking into the Dissection Room for the first time was extremely nerve-wracking and exciting. Having heard stories about people fainting during their first DR session, I was worried that I would do the same. What I did find challenging was the distinctive odour of embalming chemicals. To preserve the bodies, each one is treated with chemicals.\u00a0 The novelty of this odour can be challenging – making it the one and only downside of dissection classes. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, once we became familiar with the instruments and started dissecting, everything \u2013 including the distinctive odour \u2013 faded into the background. Holding a scalpel for the first time and making my first incision felt like a rite of passage. Although initially reluctant to cut through the skin of the donor and begin our journey of discovery; looking for various vessels, muscles and bones, under the guidance of the Demonstrators, we quickly became more proficient and confident as our skill grew. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A personal highlight for me during my time in the DR\u00a0was\u00a0when we had to use\u00a0the\u00a0appropriate\u00a0instruments\u00a0to carefully remove a piece of the spine to uncover the structures that lie below it. What made it even more fascinating was\u00a0recognising\u00a0signs of a condition that had previously affected our donor.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked a few of my classmates to share their impressions\u00a0and experiences in the DR:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Marek Zeleny: \u201cIt\u2019s one of the most enjoyable parts of the medical curriculum – dissecting makes me appreciate the body more and transfers lecture knowledge to real life.\u201d<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Mitchell Tong: \u201cEvery dissection session I participate in furthers my interest in medicine and appreciation for the complexity of the human body that a textbook or model cannot illustrate.\u201d<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First year BSc (Hons) student Dong Min Huh shares his experience in the Dissection Room. If you asked 100 medical students what the best part of studying Medicine in St Andrews is, I\u2019d confidently bet that most of them would give the same answer: the opportunity to do full body dissections.\u00a0 There\u2019s\u00a0something incredibly different about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1342],"tags":[275,1431,1076,1143],"class_list":["post-7409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-university-of-st-andrews","tag-dissection-room","tag-student-stories","tag-students","tag-undergraduate"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 04:11:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}