
Cadavers in the ballroom: Drs practice their craft in America’s favorite hotels - gadders
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-hotels/
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willholloway
You know you are in a regulation bubble when the caution and judgement of the
most highly trained professionals in our society is reflexively concluded to
be inadequate and inferior to that of bureaucrats even when said professionals
are working on the DEAD, whom they have no chance of harming.

The regulation fetish has become a form of magical thinking. In the thinking
of the regulation fetishist, the lack of explicit permission from authority is
in and of itself dangerous, but the danger could be easily neutralized by a
talismanic permit!

The fact that these professionals have already adhered to countless existing
regulations and have been trained to safely deal with bodily fluids and
infection risk is immaterial to the regulation fetishist. The government has
not explicitly granted permission for this exact activity. In this mindset
anything that is not enumerated as an allowed activity is dangerous and should
be forbidden.

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an_account
If they follow all medical waste and blood born pathegons procedures, then
what does it matter?

Continuing education of medical practitioners is incredibley valuable to
society.

~~~
rhcom2
Sounds like it is unregulated and they aren't following procedures
consistently.

> And at the Disney lab last month, coffee and tea were available near one
> cadaver station. After a Reuters reporter asked if this were allowed, the
> refreshments were removed from the room.

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scarhill
There's a chapter on this in Mary Roach's book Stiff[1]. The book was
published in 2003, so this has been going on for a long time.

1 - [https://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-
Cadavers/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-
Cadavers/dp/0393324826)

~~~
michaelbuckbee
This book is great and I thought really respectful and interesting given the
subject matter.

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travmatt
Funnily enough, I have a friend who organized these exact events. He said many
doctors combined these events with vacations - take the family to a resort for
a week, spend half the day with them, the other half working towards their
continuing education requirements.

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soared
While this practice is probably not good, the article is definitely witch
hunting. Why does the author call out a bunch of hotel brands (Its now
Hilton's job to regulate doctors?). Continuously using the term "body
broker"... Come on reuters. These are doctors practicing procedures in
potentially unsafe ways, why are you dragging all this irrelevant shit into
it?

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noer
The one question I had that doesn't seem to be covered is whether the bodies
are embalmed or preserved beyond refrigeration. I read a couple of the other
chapters and it seemed as though the spine & heads they bought were just
refrigerated, but aren't gross anatomy specimens used for several months and
are embalmed or preserved in some way?

~~~
ghkbrew
Gross anatomy specimens like used to teach med students are definitely
preserved. That's basically a requirement when you're going to use the same
body through-out a course that takes 6 months to a year.

I don't have any specific experience with these sorts of cadaver labs, but I
can tell you that preserved flesh looks and responds quite a bit differently
than live tissue. Especially if you're trying to teach surgical techniques, I
can see the benefit of using a cadaver that hasn't been chemically preserved.

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forgottenpass
While I'm certain it sounds bad to the people who would find this icky, there
is zero in this article about the risk.

Yes, the word "risk" is used. But the Osterholm quote is not a medical risk
analysis. To decide what, if anything, should be done differently, it is
necessary to both quantify the risk, and decide what level of risk the public
finds tolerable for convention centers.

I would be surprised if the risk of infectious disease from cadavers in the
convention center is as high as the risk of infectious disease when the
convention center is packed to capacity with germ-carrying people there to
watch power point presentations.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Germ carrying people have functioning immune systems. Cadavers do not. They
are just laying there rotting, like a giant Petri dish with no lid in which a
mix of multiple unnamed microbes have been bred and are now running wild.

~~~
phren0logy
This is incorrect, they are heavily preserved.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It isn't like that had not occurred to me.

But Superbugs keep adapting to antibiotics etc. I am skeptical of the idea
that dunking dead bodies in chemicals is anywhere near as effective as a
living immune system.

Living microbes seem to adapt if all they are faced with is poison of some
sort. In fact, petrochemical spills can be remediated with an injection of
microbes that eat petrochemicals.

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chomp
I don't see what the issue is as long as proper medical procedures are
followed. This article seems like it's hunting for outrage.

~~~
op00to
You obviously didn't read the article. First, "proper medical procedures"
aren't followed - they provide food and drink near areas where human tissue
may be flying about, presenting incredible risk of transmission of disease.
Second, it's impossible to properly clean up hotel ballroom spaces from blood
borne pathogens compared to labs available in teaching hospitals. Carpets and
other textiles have no place in a lab.

~~~
zeveb
> they provide food and drink near areas where human tissue may be flying
> about, presenting incredible risk of transmission of disease

Well, if the physicians & surgeons consuming the food & drink don't care, why
should we? Presumably they are educated and trained enough to consider the
risks.

> Second, it's impossible to properly clean up hotel ballroom spaces from
> blood borne pathogens compared to labs available in teaching hospitals.

I imagine that it's the teaching hospitals who sponsored this report — it's in
their interest to see this kind of thing banned, because then they'd have a
monopoly on cadaver labs.

~~~
op00to
> Well, if the physicians & surgeons consuming the food & drink don't care,
> why should we? Presumably they are educated and trained enough to consider
> the risks.

Physicians have some of the worst hand washing hygiene in hospitals. Not sure
I'll take advice on sanitation from them:
[http://abcnews.go.com/Health/doctors-hand-hygiene-
plummets-w...](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/doctors-hand-hygiene-plummets-
watched-study-finds/story?id=39737505)

