Body part mix-up halts uni teaching
Adam Cresswell, Health editor
November 28, 2006
HUMAN body parts used for anatomy teaching at a leading university medical school have been wrongly labelled or identified as belonging to the wrong body.
NSW health authorities announced yesterday they had last week revoked the anatomy teaching licence of the University of NSW's surgical skills laboratory, where the lapses occurred.
Specialist anatomy teaching for doctors studying to become surgeons has had to be halted due to the problems.
A spokeswoman for the university said the body parts came from individuals who had donated their bodies for medical research or teaching purposes.
Medical school staff had about a month ago themselves reported "concerns" over the labelling, which were then passed on by the university to NSW Health.
The spokeswoman said she understood some body parts were incorrectly labelled, either having wrong anatomical descriptions of what they were, or having a donor's name that was unclear or incorrect.
The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons said last night it was "extremely disappointed" at the disruption to its training schedules the licence revocation could create.
The blunder could also inflame tensions between the college and the universities, which have previously been fiercely criticised by the RACS and three other medical colleges for cutting back undergraduate anatomy training.
In July a consortium of five universities floated a plan to wrest control of specialist surgical training away from the RACS, although UNSW was not a member of this group.
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, a spokeswoman for South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health said it had conducted an inspection of UNSW surgical skills laboratories "in its role as regulator of anatomy laboratories within its boundaries".
"As a result the university's anatomy licence for the surgical skills laboratories was revoked and conditions placed ... until these laboratories comply with licensing requirements for the storage and labelling of body parts.
"The university is co-operating fully with the regulator and has already demonstrated substantial progress in rectifying the identified deficiencies."
A spokeswoman for the health authority said "until they can show they are managing the storage in the laboratory of body parts as required under the regulations, that part of the laboratory will not be able to be used".
The university yesterday issued a statement saying "all of the bodies" donated to UNSW for the purpose of teaching and research had been used for this purpose.
The university had now "commissioned an advanced cataloguing system for specimens" and had "commenced an audit of all anatomical material held".
"The university is currently completing this audit, and implementing improvements in its processes, under the oversight of the inspector," the UNSW statement said.
However, the UNSW spokeswoman could not estimate how long it would take before the surgical skills laboratory would be ready to re-apply for the licence.
Anatomy teaching for undergraduates is not affected by the licence revocation, as it is conducted in a separate laboratory.
The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons warned the interruption to specialist anatomy training at UNSW could have "a serious effect" on the training of new surgeons at a time when the existing surgical workforce was already under pressure.
College president Russell Stitz said he recognised the "gravity" of not labelling body parts correctly, and that the halting of anatomy teaching to trainee surgeons would have a "significant effect if it goes on for any length of time".
"It means we would have to look at alternative sites to train our trainees," Dr Stitz said.
"That puts a further load on already strained resources."