40 students sharing one cadaver. International standards recommend 10. Some Ugandan medical students go through anatomy training watching from a distance — and experts say it could be producing doctors who don’t fully understand the human body.
A severe shortage of cadavers — preserved human bodies used to teach anatomy — is quietly undermining medical education across Uganda, with more than 15 universities now offering medical programmes and competing for a supply that has not grown to match them.
Cadaver dissection is the gold standard for teaching anatomy worldwide. It gives students hands-on knowledge of the human body, the relationships between organs and tissues, and skills that textbooks and digital simulations cannot fully replicate. New Vision investigations have found that some institutions are making 30 to 50 students share a single cadaver during practical sessions — far above internationally recommended standards.
The International Federation of Associations of Anatomists recommends a ratio of 10 students per cadaver for effective learning. Some experts argue even fewer students should share a body. Dr. Frank Asiimwe, a senior surgeon at Mulago National Referral Hospital, said the ideal ratio is 4 students per cadaver.
“The body-to-student ratio should be one to four. When one student is working on the head, another should be examining the abdomen while others study the limbs. Anatomy is not about observing what others do. It is hands-on learning,” he explained.
The shortage has left many students with limited — sometimes zero — opportunities to participate in dissections.
A final-year medical student from a public university, who requested anonymity, said overcrowding during anatomy practicals had become routine.
“As an individual, I got an opportunity to participate in one practical session, but it was limited to the back and limbs. We were tracing muscles, joints, bones, nerves and major blood vessels, and it only happened once. There were 29 students in that shift, and not all of us got a chance to even touch the cadaver. Most of us simply watched while only about three students carried out the actual dissection. The second time, I was again only observing from a distance, and there were about 40 students in the session,” she said.
She added that lecturers had informed them that the shortage of cadavers made it difficult to organise smaller groups for practical sessions.
“That body had already been dissected by the class ahead of us. We were working on sections that had already been cut, and most of the skin had already been removed.”
For a student preparing to become a doctor, this is the reality: learning anatomy by watching someone else dissect what is left of a body that was already cut up by the class before them.
A dean at a medical school in northern Uganda, who requested anonymity, described the struggle to find bodies.
“We currently have 76 students and only three bodies. Ideally, we need at least 15 cadavers every year, but the cost is high and the supply is limited,” he said.
His institution receives cadavers through an arrangement with Makerere University, but allocations are often insufficient to meet demand. Under Uganda’s Anatomy Rules of 1957, public hospitals may transfer bodies that remain unclaimed for at least 14 days to medical training institutions for educational purposes. As a result, most medical schools rely almost entirely on unclaimed bodies for anatomy training.
New Vision has established that at least nine universities obtain cadavers through Makerere University, which prepares the bodies after receiving them from Mulago National Referral Hospital and other public health facilities in Kampala.
Previously, Makerere exchanged bodies with universities from as far as Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, or Kenya. The International Federation of Anatomical Associations recommends procuring cadavers from donation programmes, but even then, universities are required to exchange bodies with their foreign counterparts to avoid a scenario of a student dissecting a body of a relative or a person they knew.
Assoc. Prof. Erisa Mwaka, Dean of the School of Biomedical Sciences at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, said the shortage is largely driven by Uganda’s dependence on unclaimed bodies.
“Right now, we have about 15 medical schools and only a few institutions that can prepare cadavers. The bodies mainly come from public hospitals after remaining unclaimed for at least 14 days, but the supply is simply not enough to meet demand,” Mwaka said.
He said the number of unclaimed bodies has been declining even as student enrolment continues to rise.
“For Makerere alone, we use about 40 cadavers every year. At the moment I have requests for more than 60 cadavers from different institutions, but we cannot meet that demand because obtaining bodies has become increasingly difficult.”
Makerere not only trains its own students, but also supplies prepared cadavers to several public and private universities at a cost of about Shs 1.5 million per body.
Dr. Peace Bagasha, a clinical lecturer at Makerere University’s Palliative Care Unit and a urologist at Mulago Hospital, said disparities in anatomy knowledge among students from different institutions are a real concern.
“There are students who come from certain universities and they have not been adequately exposed. That is why we have always advocated for uniform final examinations in both theory and practicals because we do not know the quality of training some students receive,” she said.
Prof. Joel Okullo, Chairperson of the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council, said anatomy remains one of the foundations of medical education and that institutions must demonstrate adequate facilities before accreditation.
He emphasised that anatomy requires practical dissection skills that cannot be fully replaced by demonstrations, textbooks, or computer simulations.
“We want every student to have the opportunity to dissect and understand the human body. That practical experience is essential because anatomy forms the basis of medical practice,” he said.
Dr. Frank Asiimwe pointed to body donation as a partial solution — and to a cultural and legal gap standing in the way.
“In organ donation, the family can still bury the rest of the body. With body donation, the entire body is used for teaching and research. Many African families have strong cultural attachments to burying their loved ones,” he said.
Uganda currently lacks a specific law governing voluntary body donation. “We need a robust legal framework to support voluntary body donation. Some people have already expressed willingness to donate their bodies, but a proper law would provide guidance, protection, and public confidence in the process,” Mwaka said.
Despite advances in simulation technology and digital anatomy models, experts insist that cadaver-based learning remains indispensable.
“Every doctor must understand the human body thoroughly before diagnosing illnesses, performing procedures, or making critical clinical decisions,” Asiimwe said. “Technology is useful, but it cannot entirely substitute learning from a real human body.”
To address the shortage, medical educators are advocating for the establishment of a structured body donation programme. Mwaka said such a programme would provide a sustainable source of cadavers while ensuring that bodies are obtained through informed consent.
“Our country needs well-trained doctors,” he said.
For the medical students currently sitting in crowded anatomy halls — watching from a distance while three classmates dissect a body that was already cut up by the previous group — that future framework cannot come soon enough. The doctors treating Uganda in ten years are being trained right now, with the bodies that are available, in the numbers that are available. Whether that is enough is the question this shortage forces the country to confront.
