Dental school students took a selfie with a professor and two severed heads during a workshop that was held at Yale University last year, an incident that the school's officials have described as "disturbing" and "inexcusable."
The picture was shot in June during the DePuy Synthes Future Leaders Workshop, which discussed facial deformities related to the dental field.
Selfie With Severed Heads
According to The Guardian, the Associated Press was able to acquire a copy of the selfie from a source who received the image within a private group chat. The source, who wished to remain anonymous to protect his or her career, told the Associated Press that the person who captured the selfie refused to give permission to have it published due to the fear of expulsion.
The photograph features mostly dental school students, with several looking toward the camera while others are working, and all of which have surgical masks on. The two severed heads, however, were also captured in the selfie, as they were on the table and face up.
Included in the picture is Dr. Flavio Uribe, who is a University of Connecticut assistant professor and orthodontics program director, and also a visiting professor at Yale.
According to Uribe, he was instructing his students on how to insert screws into the cadaver heads when the selfie was snapped.
"Somebody unfortunately took a photo," Uribe said. "It was so quick. I wasn't sure of the surroundings or scenery at that point," the doctor added.
University of Connecticut spokesman Christopher Hyers said that school was informed of the matter, and that it has taken internal measures. Uribe, however, revealed that he did not receive punishment of any kind.
Meanwhile, Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy said that the workshop was not run by the university itself, and that the severed heads were not received by Yale as donations. Even so, Yale is working on improving its procedures on overseeing the use of cadavers in the school.
Disturbing And Inexcusable Selfies
Sometimes, selfies result in stunning images, such as the panorama of Mars that was taken by NASA's Curiosity Rover. However, selfies sometimes lead to similarly "disturbing" and inexcusable" results, including the case of the baby dolphin that died on a beach in Argentina because tourists dragged the animal out of the water to take pictures with it.
In any case, however, it is simply inappropriate to upload images or videos of dead people. YouTuber Logan Paul learned this the hard way when he uploaded a video of a dead body that was spotted in Japan's infamous Aokigahara forest. Paul was later removed from the Google Preferred program for his lapse of judgment.
