This is interesting to see offered, and I’m curious if it will sell to the civilian crowd. I’ve had the benefit of a cadaver lab in years past, and it is indeed invaluable for understanding anatomy and physiology and for practicing invasive procedures. As an interesting historical footnote, this guy cut up our body when I was in medic school, obviously before he was arrested! The body shop at UCLA was a sight to see, and something that I will likely never fully forget.
What an amazing opportunity for some top notch emergency medical training!! If I ever have this type of chance and I can swing it I would jump at it.
Ok.
I survived the class.
It was incredible ... and humbling at the same time.
I kept down my breakfast, and managed to have lunch.
It wasn't as bad as I expected.
The lab was connected to a "clean room" (classroom) equipped with a stocked kitchenette.
We had to walk into the lab first, then into the classroom.
Our lab tech for the day was a very nice fellow and bought us bagels and coffee.
Kinda weird partaking in a life-affirming morning ritual not 20 feet away from the cadavers.
I will post an AAR - lots of pics and video - but I have to learn how to blur faces and other sensitive areas in videos - something I have never done before.
Then I have to figure out if it's something that I can post without stressing too many people out. It is not for the squeamish.
I'll give you a rundown of what we did.
Intro - very brief classroom session - overview of approach to TECC/TCCC. This was a battlefield medicine class previously only offered to .mil. This was the first open enrollment session as far as I know.
a) bleeding - tourniquets
b) bleeding - wound packing
c) bleeding - direct pressure
d) lunch break (1 hour)
e) non-surgical airways (npa, opa, king airway)
the king airway was not possible to demo because of the rigor mortis. the jaw is the first place to get rigor - starting 20 minutes after death.
f) surgical airway (crich) - this was actually very easy to do but you have to make incisions in the right place and stick your finger in a hole you made in the throat and cricothyroid membrane
g) needle decompression for tension pneumothorax - there are two places to do this - you need to palpate ribs
h) finger thoracostomy - easy in practice, but you have to make an incision in the right place and stick your finger in between the ribs and into the chest cavity
i) chest tube
j) emergency field amputation of limbs using 3 different techniques - scalpel/bone saw combo, scalpel/wire saw combo, or duct tape and sawzall (again, this is a military application). I performed the sawzall and it got a little messy.
k) anatomy of thoracic cavity (heart, lungs).
anyways, i have to carefully put together an AAR that involves a bit more work than I am used to.
stay tuned.
I do want to pass on one thing that is extremely important to mention
Be careful where you buy your tourniquets from.
Chris deliberately included some fake CAT-T's purchased on Amazon.
Once we got the bleeding machine going (embalming pump) and doing arterial cuts ...
Some of the bleeds were gushing (the femoral - holy crap) and you had maybe less than a minute to apply a TQ before very bad things happened.
In the midst of applying a fake tourniquet ... it broke. And there may not have been enough time to apply a new one.
I have video footage and will clean it up - but I think that's one takeaway. Know your vendors. Buy from reputable sources like North American Rescue.
The other thing - it's nice if you carry a tourniquet with you all the time.
Carry TWO.
We worked on femoral bleeds where one wasn't enough.
Same applies to needle decompression - carry two needles.
Crazy, I know.
More to come later.
Cadaver labs are excellent learning, and open enrollment ones rare.
When attending autopsies or labs, I was almost always hungry afterward. Reportedly quite normal, and explained as a remnant of our inner-caveman. Maybe @Dr_Thanatos can explain it more science-like.Quote:
Originally Posted by 30 cal slut
Thanks for the follow-up and AAR on this.
Thank you for the AAR so far, and I'm looking forward to the full one and video. I was actually going to ask that you do an AAR due to this being one of the most interesting classes I've heard of, so I really appreciate it!
Sounds like the specimen was being infused by a Porti Boy embalming pump adjustable for pressure and output.
IIRC it has to do with the effects of the formalin/formaldehyde vapors, if my memories of MS1 aren't too fuzzy yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by ST911
The most disconcerting part about the fixatives was when they would mix with subQ fat and turn into a grease that penetrated right through my two pairs of exam gloves and caused my fingers to go numb. I bought the really thick, expensive puncture-resistant gloves after that.
Uhh...Thinking hard uses energy? That's all I got. I mean, you are standing up, and (hopefully) looking, seeing and thinking hard. You have some amount of sympathetic stimulation, cause its all new and cool. So, you burn energy.Quote:
Originally Posted by ST911
The fixatives are what put me off food.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nephrology
Also, layer nitrile with latex. The nitrile does a better job of stopping the organic fixative. I put the nitrile next to skin, and layer the latex over it.
I think the material of the gloves I ended up with was "N-dex." Did the job pretty well, but I still double layered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr_Thanatos
I still remember the gross oversized scrubs that I wore for anatomy and how good it felt to throw them in the trash when I was done. Good times.