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Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act

BACKGROUND: Anatomy Act provides legal ambit to medical educationists for the acquisition of cadavers. The changing medical education scenario, socio-demographic change, and ethical concerns have necessitated an urgent review of its legal and ethical framework. Suitable amendments addressing the cur...

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Autores principales: Lalwani, Rekha, Kotgirwar, Sheetal, Athavale, Sunita Arvind
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7382862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32711534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00507-0
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author Lalwani, Rekha
Kotgirwar, Sheetal
Athavale, Sunita Arvind
author_facet Lalwani, Rekha
Kotgirwar, Sheetal
Athavale, Sunita Arvind
author_sort Lalwani, Rekha
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Anatomy Act provides legal ambit to medical educationists for the acquisition of cadavers. The changing medical education scenario, socio-demographic change, and ethical concerns have necessitated an urgent review of its legal and ethical framework. Suitable amendments addressing the current disparities and deficiencies are long overdue. METHODS: Anatomy Act in India is a state Act, which ensures the provision of human bodies for medical education and research. Comparison of various Anatomy Acts clause by clause, Feedback from anatomists, and Formulation of comprehensive model Anatomy Act. RESULTS: Various Acts studied showed discrepancies in the purpose of the Act, roles and duties of stakeholders, regulation for body donation, the procedure to handle unclaimed bodies, disposal of dissected bodies, etc. No Act defines a donor and neither addresses the issue of transport of anatomical material. Only ten states have a clause for body donation. Acts of only six states have been amended over the last 50 years. Three states denied having an Act. The whole exercise of review of Acts, extensive feedback received from end-users, and taking into account global good practices, culminated in drafting a comprehensive model Anatomy Act founded on ethical principles. CONCLUSION: India, with the largest number of medical colleges, is not only at the forefront but also a hub of medical education in the Southeast Asia region. Legal reform can be a torchbearer to promote ethical and transparent practices for obtaining cadavers for other countries of the region with similar socio-demography and shall also motivate anatomic fraternity across the globe for critical analysis of their respective Anatomy Acts.
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spelling pubmed-73828622020-07-28 Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act Lalwani, Rekha Kotgirwar, Sheetal Athavale, Sunita Arvind BMC Med Ethics Research Article BACKGROUND: Anatomy Act provides legal ambit to medical educationists for the acquisition of cadavers. The changing medical education scenario, socio-demographic change, and ethical concerns have necessitated an urgent review of its legal and ethical framework. Suitable amendments addressing the current disparities and deficiencies are long overdue. METHODS: Anatomy Act in India is a state Act, which ensures the provision of human bodies for medical education and research. Comparison of various Anatomy Acts clause by clause, Feedback from anatomists, and Formulation of comprehensive model Anatomy Act. RESULTS: Various Acts studied showed discrepancies in the purpose of the Act, roles and duties of stakeholders, regulation for body donation, the procedure to handle unclaimed bodies, disposal of dissected bodies, etc. No Act defines a donor and neither addresses the issue of transport of anatomical material. Only ten states have a clause for body donation. Acts of only six states have been amended over the last 50 years. Three states denied having an Act. The whole exercise of review of Acts, extensive feedback received from end-users, and taking into account global good practices, culminated in drafting a comprehensive model Anatomy Act founded on ethical principles. CONCLUSION: India, with the largest number of medical colleges, is not only at the forefront but also a hub of medical education in the Southeast Asia region. Legal reform can be a torchbearer to promote ethical and transparent practices for obtaining cadavers for other countries of the region with similar socio-demography and shall also motivate anatomic fraternity across the globe for critical analysis of their respective Anatomy Acts. BioMed Central 2020-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7382862/ /pubmed/32711534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00507-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lalwani, Rekha
Kotgirwar, Sheetal
Athavale, Sunita Arvind
Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act
title Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act
title_full Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act
title_fullStr Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act
title_full_unstemmed Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act
title_short Changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in Anatomy Act
title_sort changing medical education scenario: a wakeup call for reforms in anatomy act
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7382862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32711534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00507-0
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