The Coakley Medal for Dissection is an annual competition held in University College Dublin during the summer months. The medal is awarded based on the dissection of a given body part, a presentation and an educational poster that are judged by a panel of academics from the anatomy department. In this article, the winner of the 2018 Coakley Medal reflects on his experiences in the competition.

This summer I had the privilege of competing in the Coakley Medal for Dissection competition. Professor J.B. Coakley was head of the Department of Human Anatomy in UCD from 1962 – 1988. In his honour, the department runs an annual dissection competition where competing students perform a dissection on a given area of the body, which is then judged by a panel of academics. I hope that this reflection on my experiences in the anatomy laboratory this summer is helpful for students who would like to know more about the competition.

Competitors for the Coakley Medal are selected at the end of the second semester from a pool of students across a range of health science degree programmes. The application process involves submitting a short statement on motivations and expectations for the project alongside a CV. The posters of previous Coakley projects are displayed on the walls of the anatomy lab and we had used many of these prosected materials in our first-year anatomy modules, so I was aware of the competition and its high standards. Time spent learning anatomy from the donors is incredibly valuable, and so the opportunity to plan, perform and present a dissection is an attractive prospect for students interested in anatomy and surgery. My advice to those putting together an application for the competition is to be specific about your interest in anatomy; if you covered an area that you found interesting in class perhaps you could think about how you would dissect that area and mention this in your application.

Before the competition begins, competitors choose the area of the body that they will focus on from a prescribed list that the anatomy department feels will add value to their existing library of prosections. This year (2018), the choice of projects included:

• The male genital tract (pelvis)

• The anterior forearm muscles (upper limb)

• The posterior intercostal veins (thorax)

• The pharynx and carotid sheaths (head and neck)

I chose to dissect the pharynx and carotid sheaths in the head and neck area. After the projects were distributed, we each wrote a detailed plan for our projects. At the planning stage, it is important to keep the big picture in mind; you cannot count on anatomical structures being where you expect them to be, or appear as they do in the textbook. It is, therefore, necessary to be flexible and adaptable. It is also important to have an idea of what the finished product will look like and to get feedback on your idea from academics.

Competitors have access to the laboratory over July and August to perform their dissections. Teamwork is required, particularly at the beginning, as boundaries are set between projects. As the summer progresses the project becomes more focused and the lab becomes quieter. Everyone is working from different plans and so progress is made at different rates which can be intimidating. There is a great camaraderie among competitors, who are all at different stages on their own path through health science education but share a common interest in anatomy.

Figure 1

Posterior view of the pharynx and carotid sheath

The goal of my project was to give a clear view of the pharynx from the posterior side and
to show the structures of the carotid sheath as it descends towards the thorax. After isolating the
head and neck from the rest of the body I removed the cervical vertebrae and the muscles of the back
of the neck. The skull and brain were sectioned in
the coronal plane using a bone saw and a long knife. The carotid sheath was dissected on one side and the vasculature that it contains was identified. An incision was made in the midline of the posterior pharynx which, when reflected, allowed for an interesting view of the pharynx, oral and nasal cavities. The finished product is shown in Figure 1.

Towards the end of the summer, the bulk
of the dissection is complete and focus shifts to researching any interesting variations or pathologies that might be present. In the head and neck region, our donor exhibited an oesophageal web(Figure 2). This is often associated with the rare Plummer- Vinson syndrome, which is related to iron deficiency.1 Evaluation of the branching pattern of the carotid arteries revealed a thyrolingual trunk(Figure 3) – a variation in branching that is prevalent in 1 out of every 100 carotid arteries.2

Learning anatomy through the Coakley competition is learning through immersion; we
were fully engaged over the summer in discussion
on approaches and techniques that we could use
to bring the most value to our dissection. The competition is judged based on three evenly weighted components: the quality of the prosection itself, an academic poster and a presentation. At the end of
the competition, the prosections are presented in the anatomy lab alongside a slideshow of images showing the steps taken towards the finished product. Lessons on anatomical photography are made available to students before the competition; it is valuable to become familiar with how the lab camera works at the start of the project. Clear pictures are important when it comes to making the poster, which is judged on its presentation and its educational value. The final stage of judging is a presentation
to the anatomy department with questions from academics. We had freedom in the approach we took to the dissection, poster and presentation and so, in each component, there was opportunity to present the educational and creative value of our project. Presenting our work both orally and through a poster allowed us to practise soft skills, which are useful for

research and clinical practice. As medical students, having the dissection experience to include in a portfolio of research can help to attract attention in interviews for training schemes.

Having presented our projects, we thought that the hardest part of the competition was over
– but of course, the nail-biting wait to find out the results of the competition had just begun!

Acknowledgements

Ultimately, taking part in the Coakley Medal for Dissection Competition is something I highly recommend to any health science student.
This summer has made an impression on my understanding of the human body that will change the way I will practise medicine in the future. I would like to thank the donors and their families for their selflessness which continues to impact students of anatomy at UCD. I would also like to thank the faculty of the Department of Human Anatomy who organise and judge the competition, the anatomy technical staff for their help in the laboratory, and a special thanks to Christian Myles for the incredible effort that he made daily to help me with my project.

Patrick Creechan is the winner of the J.B Coakley Medal for Dissection 2018.

1. Novacek, G. (2006). Plummer-Vinson syn- drome. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, 1(1), 36

2. Natsis, K., Raikos, A., Foundos, I., Noussios, G., Lazaridis, N., & Njau, S. N. (2011). Superior thyroid artery origin in Caucasian Greeks: A new classification proposal and review of the literature. Clinical Anatomy, 24(6), 699–705.