The faculty of the Medical and Health Professions Education Program at Virginia Health Sciences proudly announces the date for Padma Gadepally, MD's dissertation defense. The study entitled A CASE STUDY EXPLORING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES IN AN ANATOMY DONOR LAB investigated the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses of high school biology students participating in a donor-based anatomy lab. The dissertation defense is an open event.
Date: October 21, 2026
Time: 5:00 pm EDT
Full abstract: Anatomical body donor-based learning provides authentic, hands-on experiences that enhance understanding of human anatomy and foster empathy. Although donor-based learning is well studied in higher education, little is known about how high school students experience these labs, particularly during their first exposure. This qualitative case study investigated the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses of concurrent-credit high school honors biology students from the northwestern United States who participated for the first time in a professional donor-based anatomy laboratory. The participants’ written post-lab reflections were analyzed deductively using a six-phase thematic analysis process aligned with Krathwohl’s affective domain study framework. The findings suggest that an authentic human donor encounter can provide a context in which emotional, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of learning intersect with anatomical meaning-making and emerging perspectives on health, mortality, and professional possibilities. The findings may inform the development of developmentally appropriate, ethically grounded, and intentionally structured donor-based anatomy experiences for high school students.