Dr. Christopher Ross, M.D., Assistant Professor,
Department of Emergency Medicine, Rush Medical College, Director, Cook
County Emergency Medicine Residency Director
June 18, 2012
In these days of mechanized medicine, we forget that
much of a physician’s practice involves a highly trained sense
of touch. To develop and sharpen these lifesaving skills as much practice
and repetition are needed as for any other motor skill.
Dr. Christopher Ross a nationally known emergency medicine
physician, devotes much of his time and experience to providing a safe
instructional environment for medical students, residents and physicians
to practice procedures using whole bodies. As the laboratory director
for the American College of Emergency Physicians, Dr. Ross leads two
classes per year that attract 240 physicians from across the U.S. for
training in procedures using cadavers.
In doing a procedure, a physician’s knowledge
of anatomy is put to the test. Anatomy is no longer an academic exercise
or a set of pictures when the doctor must perform a difficult and delicate
procedure. He or she must know where, precisely, he or she must insert
the needle or the scalpel.
For Dr. Ross and the physicians who have taken his course,
it is a very positive experience. “There is no better other way
to explain human anatomy than through contact with a human body. Simulators
have come a long way, but they can’t replicate the experience
of a whole body. For training, the whole body is truly the gold standard.”
For practicing physicians, many procedures are rarely,
if ever, performed, but a doctor must be ready to perform them correctly
when they are needed. “Practicing physicians are caught. It’s
a scary situation. They may not have done some of these procedures for
years. So they are grateful for the learning experience these courses
offer.”
Dr. Ross teaches a similar laboratory for the residents
in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stroger Hospital in Chicago,
one of the most prestigious emergency medicine training programs in
the nation. The residents in the program go over every procedure an
emergency medicine physician will need in his or her practice. “Our
residents are extremely well prepared as a result of our cadaver training.”
A crucial limitation that Dr. Ross encounters is the
availability of whole bodies and their expense. “My residents’
lab uses only two cadavers. The course would be even better with more
material. We don’t have enough and my department encounters budget
limitations. Supply is important. We see the difference that cadaver
training makes in the skills of our residents.” Dr. Ross is working
to raise and maintain the skills of doctors across the country; the
use of whole bodies is a vital part of that effort.