Be certain to carefully read the dissection instructions. Often you will not follow the exact same instructions for the right and left sides of the head and neck. Many structures will be removed from the right side of the head and neck to allow for the exposure of more deeply positioned structures.
(ON BOTH SIDES) Carefully (be patient) remove the skin from the face and anterior neck. Do not remove the superficial fascia with the skin.
- On both sides of the cadaver, make an incision from the sagittal suture (bregma) down around the ear and across the lateral aspect of the neck to the acromion (meeting the skin incision from the upper extremity dissection). Start the incision approximately 12 cm superior to the supraorbital margin and carry the incision as close as possible to the ear. Do not remove the ear.
- Start a second incision at the same point as the first incision. Carry this incision down across the forehead (in the median plane) to the bridge of the nose. Continue this incision around both sides of the nose meeting at the philtrum (you do not need to remove the skin from the nose). From the philtrum, continue the incision in the median plane to the vermillion border of the lip (where the pink of the lip meets the hairy skin of the lip). Carry the incision around the mouth following the vermillion border. From the midpoint of the vermillion border of the lower lip, carry the incision in the median plane inferiorly across the anterior neck to the jugular notch (meeting the skin incision from the upper extremity dissection).
- Make separate incisions around the margins of the upper and lower lids. The skin of the lids is very thin.