"Bodies" the Exhibition: is there a guide book?

OK, I've been grappling with my conscience as to whether I should go or not, and I've come to the decision that maybe, just maybe, if I visit the exhibition I might pick something up that helps me in my voluntary first aid, and maybe even take better care of someone who really needs it. However, I don't want to go and just go "oooh, look at de yukky boddy", I want my visit to be meaningful, I want to be able to take notice of things which would be relevant to an Emergency First Responder.

Can anyone recommend anything I should have, a textbook, or a webpage printout, or even a guided tour? Considering we're entering the last month of the exhibit, I don't want to waste the oppertunity to see parts of the body first-hand which I would have very little chance of seeing in real life (well, I'd hope not!)

Kwekubo

I totally appreciate your outlook, but as a fellow voluntary EFR and a med student, if I were in your position I'd wait until the opportunity presented itself to visit a more reputable exhibition such as the Van Hagens 'BodyWorks' shows (although I'm aware that that project isn't totally pure either). In this day and age I don't think it's acceptable to do what you like with a person's body just because it is unclaimed, if consent has not been given by the person whose body it was.

I'm kinda with you on that, but it's a case of either allowing those bodies in to be wasted upon their plinths, only visited by gawpers and tourists or at the very least gaining some benefit from their being there. I have no interest in going as a tourist. I would be there to learn. But still, i'd soap up the chance to visit an exhibit where we knew that the deceased wished for his/her body to be displayed this way.

That's meant to read: "snap up the chance". Damn predictive text!

Vorsprung

I went to it a while back. I wouldn't have thought that there's much in it that would be of use to someone who's training in First Aid or who's an EFR. It does however display some aspects of human anatomy very well.

As an aside, there's an anatomy museum in the Health Sciences building in UCD. I used to study in it when it was in Earlsfort Terrace, so I'm not sure what's survived the move. But if even half the stuff came over, it would be worth a look if members of the public were allowed in. Worth checking out if you're interested - it's a bit cruder, and a lot of the specimens were gathered in the dark old days of the 1800s.

DrIndy

I had 2 people delivered via ambulance to the ED from there because they fainted!

tallaght01

Is there any official line on where these bodies come from?

If there's no transparency, then I think that anyone involved in healthcare should think long and hard about giving money to these people. That's just my opinion, though.

As someone who started out as a first aider, and still teaches first aid, I don't think this will help you much.

Well, today would have been the day, and i ended up spending the E20 on a few books! Thanks for the replies all!

faceman

Some articles about the controversy here

http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/business/worldbusiness/08bodies.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5637687

DrIndy

In china - if you die and no-one claims your body - it goes to the chinese state as "the peoples property" and on that basis can be sold onwards.

This is where the bodies in this exhibition come from. Is it ethical - maybe not as express consent was not obtained.