The Breakfast Club: case study of a teaching-autopsy curriculum

A decision prohibiting student access to coronial autopsies in Auckland, New Zealand, was recently discussed in the British Medical Journal (O’Grady, 2003). Clinical and ethical implications aside, the prohibition brought an end to the Breakfast Club, a remarkable community of post-mortem learning. Over 20 years of voluntary attendance at autopsy, this group of students established a self-directed curriculum based around daily encounters at the post-mortem table. The success of the group testifies to the ongoing value of the autopsy as a medical teaching medium in the current era.