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

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to preserve canine cadavers for surgical training, improving aesthetics and tactile experience for both veterinary and human medical students.

## Contribution

A chemical-free, in situ gastrointestinal lavage method to delay decomposition and enhance canine cadaver usability for surgical training.

## Key findings

- Conditioned canine cadavers delay decomposition and improve haptic-tactile feedback for surgical training.
- Improved aesthetics increase motivation and focus for learners and educators.
- Skill transfer for medical students may be enhanced using conditioned canine cadavers compared to artificial simulators.

## Abstract

Both medical and veterinary students find that the use of cadavers is critical to learning anatomical structures and surgical techniques. The use of human cadavers and the resulting user emotions are driven by serious ethical issues that are currently much less pronounced in veterinary education. Ethically sourced canine cadavers, thus, are more readily available. Aesthetics such as odor and visual appearance, though, influence both learner and educator motivation. We have investigated a way of delaying cadaver decomposition by post-mortem in situ, chemical-free, gastrointestinal lavage. We are convinced that canine cadavers, conditioned as described here, will improve the outcome of cadaver-based surgical skills training by facilitating preparation, reducing the number of required cadavers, postponing decomposition, improving the surgeon's haptic-tactile response to organ and tissue handling and suturing, and, possibly most importantly, increasing learners' and educators' focus due to the significantly improved aesthetics. We hypothesize that skill transfer for medical students and doctors, because of the similar abdominal anatomy, may be easier when training with conditioned canine cadavers as compared to artificial simulators or pigs in vivo.