JOIN USThe Maulana Azad Medical College conducted hands-on training on its campus on Friday to help doctors hone their skills in embalming bodies.
The two-day workshop organised by the anatomy department of the college had 30 participants from other medical colleges. “The workshop aims to give organised training to technicians and resident doctors at a broader level,” said Dr Neelam Vasudeva, Head of the Department, Anatomy, Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC).
The challenge that resident doctors often face is handling situations in case of mass casualties in which several bodies have to be preserved at once.There is often lack of sensitisation among doctors on how to preserve bodies which will be transported out of the state or in cases in which bodies are preserved for public display.
“Bodies are mainly embalmed for three purposes — for transportation, display to public and dissecting while teaching. The last one necessitates preserving the body for the longest duration,” said Dr Dinesh Kumar, Professor, Anatomy, MAMC.
Even though medical colleges do not accept infected bodies for teaching purposes, the colleges cannot refuse to embalm bodies of patients with HIV or tuberculosis if they have to be transported outside the state.
The workshop drew attention to safety measures that should be adopted while handling bodies. Lack of proper safety measures and improper biomedical waste management can be hazardous.
Doctors also needed to be alert on the legal aspects while receiving cadaver donations from relatives of the deceased, the workshop highlighted.
“It is easy to dispose of a body by donating it in murder cases. So it is important that documents be verified, the police be kept in the loop and the identity of the deceased’s relative be verified before you receive a body for teaching purpose,” said Dr Kumar.
The workshop funded by the Delhi government saw participants from University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS), Vardhaman Mahavir Medical College (VMMC) in the Capital and from medical colleges in Aligarh, Chandigarh and Jaipur.
“Even though we study anatomy in our curriculum, such workshops expose us to the sophisticated techniques of embalming bodies,” said Pooja Garg, student of Sawai Man Singh College, Jaipur.