An anonymous survey was handed out to 616 first year medical students of the José María Vargas School of Medicine of the Central University of Venezuela during the six academic years from 2002 and 2008, so that they answer it voluntarily after a cadaver dissection session, after the first unit of the practice syllabus of Gross Anatomy I had completed. The results of these surveys delivered to first year medical students report a positive response to their initial experience with a cadaver in the anatomical dissection room. In fact, the students described this initial experience as positive in a 52.22 %, while 34,25 % referred to it as very positive, 7.14 % as stressing and only a 1.13 % rated it as traumatic. In the case of only 13.63 % of these students the anatomical dissection room was the most stressing aspect of the anatomy syllabus.