Emotional responses of veterinary students to first encounters with animal body donors

Students' first encounters with animal body donors in higher education are a formative and also potentially stressful experience. The complex emotions elicited by body donor use in learning and their effects on professional development have been documented in medical students, but are far less explored in veterinary medical counterparts. In this study, we investigated student emotional responses to animal body donors and the anatomy laboratory in 164 first-year students from three UK veterinary schools. We found that many students feel positive emotions regarding their first body donor encounter, but that it can be a source of negative emotion, too. In particular, performing dissection and the use of whole, recognisable animals prompted significantly more students to report negative emotions (9% and 13% of participants respectively) compared with other class formats and specimen types (p < 0.02). As the first year course progressed, students felt generally positive about encountering body donors. Many students report their feelings surrounding body donor use changed after one (10%) or several classes (35%), whilst others reported that their feelings did not change much (43%). Almost all students felt the use of body donors enhanced their learning, with impacts on academic, practical, and interpersonal benefits cited. Whilst the picture of students' first body donor encounter in veterinary education is generally positive, the findings from this study enable us to suggest interventions that may assist in creating positive, intentional, and inclusive learning environments where animal body donors form an important part of curriculum delivery.