Using Newly Deceased Patients to Teach Resuscitation Procedures

Effective resuscitation requires physicians and others with the training and skills to perform difficult procedures under stressful conditions, yet there can be no physicians with the necessary experience unless they first have opportunities to learn and practice these skills. Some educators have recommended that physicians in training learn these techniques by practicing on recently deceased patients, since these patients cannot be harmed by the procedures.14 Physicians and society have long struggled over the ethics and value of using patients after their death for medical education. The pioneering work of the early anatomists, for instance, began to flourish after the . . .