About the Program
The human tissue laboratory gives residents, the backbone of our health care work force, the opportunity to study the arts and signs of anatomy in a controlled situation so they can faciliate their learning and thus become better surgeons. The opportunity for the surgical residents to have this type of facility further enhances the training programs at Duke, which are among the best in the country.
Dr. L. Scott Levin
Chief, Division of Plastic, Reconstructive, Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery
Chief, Division of Plastic, Reconstructive, Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery
Duke University Medical Center
| About the Program |
| Mission | Surgical Training and Research | Medical Student Anatomy Letters of Appreciation |
Medical Student Anatomy Lab
The Medical Student Anatomy Lab serves more than the 150 medical students who use it each year. In addition, the Lab offers training opportunities for future physician associates, physical therapists, pathology associates, and biomedical engineers. All these students enter the Lab to explore the complex, elegant, and subtle structures of the human body.
In the course of working with their cadavers, these students learn more than the names, locations, and functions of bodily structures. They learn the texture, flexibility, and weight of all the different tissues of the body. They learn that each body is unique and that the events of our lives leave traces on our bodies. They discover that a stranger, in one last magnanimous act, has entrusted his or her body to their hands just as patients will someday entrust their lives and well-being to their hands. The training of compassionate healers begins in the anatomy lab. Those who donate their bodies to anatomical gifts programs are truly the unsung heroes, the very foundation, of medical training.
If you would like to read some comments and reflections from our students, click here.
