The pen is reputed to be mightier than the sword. And when it comes to stress, first-year medical students would agree that the written word of the medical textbook is a far more challenging taskmaster than the cadaver awaiting dissection in class. Mind you, they seem to be able to raise a laugh when wielding the knife, whereas it is hard to get a giggle out of Gray's Anatomy.
Researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland have found that first-year students find dissecting bodies less stressful than studying.
Asked to rate the most stressful aspects of being a student, only 4 per cent chose working in the anatomy room, compared with 29 per cent who thought their workload was very stressful, and 62 per cent who nominated exams.
The findings were revealed at the college's annual research day in Dublin yesterday.
The researchers found that just over a quarter (27 per cent) of first-year students reported "vague to moderate nausea" on their first day in the dissecting room, while 22 per cent reported dizziness. These symptoms had fallen sharply after 10 weeks.
US, Canadian and Malaysian students in the group found the experience more stressful than Irish students. This is in line with the findings of studies abroad. These have found that US students suffer severe psychological distress when dissecting bodies. British students, by contrast, are rarely distressed by the task.
The students in the RCSI study said they warded off distress while dissecting by strategies which included focusing on the task (59 per cent) and black humour (45 per cent).
The researchers - Ms Alice McGarvey, Mr Skantha Kandiah and Prof Stanley Monkhouse - say mental preparation offers significant protection against distress for new students dissecting bodies.
Another project suggested a link between psychological distress and mental attitude among the sick. A team from Beaumont Hospital and the RCSI studied anxiety and depression in people suffering from a bowel disease. They reported that, "surprisingly", it was not pain or length of illness which were linked with psychological distress - what seemed to count was attitudes. People who had a strong sense of personal control over their lives or who accepted their illness were least likely to be depressed.