Channel 4 in the UK last night showed footage of an autopsy. From their website:
So I watched it. Hmmm. Actually, it was interesting stuff. The corpse had been preserved for eight months so the gore factor was low, the camera was not present at some of the ickier moments (ie the opening of the skull), there were a couple of British pathologists on hand to give a commentary on proceedings and the Professor himself attempted to use it as a way to bring people into the presence of death in the way that previous generations were used to.
Channel 4 had a couple of experts on hand who debated the morality of the spectacle. Interestingly, the pro/anti stance was split between the medical contingent, who generally dissaproved, and the former editor of the Catholic Times, who was generally in favour. (Disclaimer: I’d understandably had a few stiff drinks by this time so the debate may well have been more complex than this!). The audience of 500 gave a rousing ovation at the end.
Did anyone else see the programme? What did you think?
It wasn’t shown here in HK. I understand people paid money to attend this event in person. And I hear the prosecuters are trying to work out whether to take action.
I remember Jonathan Miller doing a lame version of this many years ago - it was on TV but not live.
I’m all in favor. Take the fear and mystery out of it.
I missed it and I’m rather glad - having nearly fainted once in a room full of cadavers.
I’m not against the principle of this thing, as I’m not in favour of censorship, but I think this particular show should be considered in the light of how it was presented: to wit, “art” not “scientific comprehension”. I think Jonathan Miller, renaissance man that he is, would have plumped for the latter. Did you see the interviews with all the Hoxton-finned ponces coming out of the “show”?
Also, von Hagens is a creepy mofo - he wore his sinister fedora hat throughout (if the news pics I saw were anything to go by).
I heard about this on the radio – I don’t think anyone carried it in the US, but I would have been interested. There has been a general tendency to try and keep the general public away from autopsies and dissections. I suppose they’re worried about the nuy cases and the sexual freaks, but I suspect there’s a bit of the same medical sense of superiority that kept the PDR out of the hands of the public for years (until too many folks started stealing it from libraries) and cultivated an aura of deep respect about the profession. What about those of us who are intellectually curious, or need the information for our own legitimate research? I had a hell of a time finding information on corpses for my book.
Plus for those outside the UK don’t get your bollocks in a twist,I’m sure someone viewing had a video encoder and this will find its way onto the binary groups and p2p networks.
Physician’s Desk Reference. A massive tome on available drugs, their manufacturers, generic equivalents, their effects, side-effects, etc. Before the Internet was around, this was the only way to get a lot of this information. People wanted to be able to look it up themselves, but the publisher would only sell to MDs, I hear. You could reference it in Medical Libraries, though. A lot of people went further and simply liberated copies from the libraries, being unable to get it any other way. So eventually they started selling it to anyone who wanted it.
Sadly I missed it. However, the pre-autopsy * interviews with von Hagens and with the Channel 4 editor (or producer or whatever - the guy who was deciding what shots would be shown and which would be cut in order to preseve taste and decency) both were insistent that it was about education and information.
“Scandals” like the organ retention stuff at Alder Hey indicated that Joe Public have no idea of what goes on during an autopsy. The general tip-toeing around the subject of death means many remain in ignorance.
The furore over the BodyWorlds exhibition suggest some self approinted spokesmen (many of them in the medical profession)feel they have the right to criticise when they press for changes to the law to prevent the exhibition from showing - apparently, if our interest isn’t professional, it must be prurient.
I wish the guys from the GMC would just get over themselves. When I visited the exhibition as if it was some Victorian freakshow. We were grateful for the opportunity to see the intricacy of the human body. Same for the autopsy, I would imagine.
Yes it was held in an art gallery. I guess the Natural History Museum would have turned it down. As for the Hoxtonites - you can convince them anything is art if you’re confident enough. It worked for Hurst and Emin.
Here’s a link to the BodyWorlds/Körperwelten exhibitions in case anyone’s interested.
It won’t affect any legal action that might be taken, but in interviews, von Hagens has claimed that he didn’t make any money out of the demonstration. Once the cost of hiring the gallery and seating were taken into consideration it made a heavy loss. I don’t know how much, if anything, Channel 4 paid him.
I watched the show on Channel 4, and it made it out to be more of a stageshow then an actual educational event.
The camera was much more interested in viewing peoples reactions, or allowing the somewhat unconventional Von Hagens to pose. I appreciate that a lot had to be cut, but please with the dozens of warnings attached to the program, could we not have actually seen the Professor at work a little more?
I’ve seen several Post Mortems, (and believe me, they’re a lot more gruesome when they haven’t already been embalmed for 6 months), and have reconstructed corpses afterwards, it is facinating to watch the pathologist establish the cause of death. The English pathologist seemed to be doing a very good job of explaining what was going on, but most of this was lost as Channel 4 cut out the “icky” parts.
If they are going to bother showing it, then show the damn thing, don’t ponce about hiding behind a bloody technician.
Meh, big deal. At least the guy’s dead. How much creepier can it be than footage of a woman getting plastic surgery on her face, with a little camera that goes through her scalp and under the skin of her forehead (and can be seen through her face) and shows a tool that rips out little muscles that give her wrinkles. And her eyes are open the whole time, glazed over with gel.
If it’s just the fact that it’s an autopsy you’re interested in, rather than this particular one, I’m sure you could find some on tape. I had to watch some for an anatomy class, so I know those tapes exist. Funny thing, though, the real thing isn’t that much different than a few episodes of The X-Files…
There are a number of websites around where you can download vision of autopsies. I won’t link directly to them as some of their other content breaches SDMB link guidelines. Needless to say, they aren’t too hard to find through google.
On one of the small US cable channels they run footage of surgeries. I walked into the break room one night at work, flipped on the set, and got an eyeful of a surgeon turning the skin around on the torso of a very large woman. He had made two incisions, one arm in each up to the elbow and was flapping the skin around like pizza dough.
Compared to the autopsy at the link I gave, no. An operation is trying to benefit the person being operated on. That concern is no longer present at an autopsy, and it is much more clinical. Also, in an autopsy, they do things you would never do on a living person. For me, these things made the autopsy more unsettling than an operation.
