Surgical Identity Play: The Anatomy Lab Revisited

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 26. Professional Training and Identity in Medicine

Abstract

The anatomy lab experience has been studied by sociologists interested in social psychology and professional socialization since the 1950s. This is not only because cadaver dissection is taboo, but also because the act of dissecting a cadaver is thought to be foundational for both the student’s medical knowledge and the development of his/her/their professional subjectivity. In this paper, I revisit the anatomy lab both historically and ethnographically. I discuss the salience of the cadaver in medical education, explaining the prominence of the lab in the medical education imaginary. I point to the different foci of past sociological analyses and outline my focus: that the range of patients medical students encounter in early clinical training has broadened over time, which has caused the role of the anatomy lab in professional socialization to shift. I argue that because the students are embedded in a curriculum that includes many different types of “first patients,” that the anatomy lab becomes prized for allowing the students to use the cadaver as a particular type of first patient, the “surgical first patient.” I ultimately show that students’ use of the material affordances of the lab to enact “surgical play” is an important form of professional socialization whereby students learn to be colleagues, as opposed to interactions with live patients, where they are socialized to be clinicians.

Author

• Alexandra Vinson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor