Unfortunately, I have never heard of any program that lets you out of gross anatomy and your 3rd year surgery rotation. I think there may be some programs that are now doing more and more work with computer simulations of anatomy, but it is no replacement for the gross gross anatomy.

The best suggestions I've heard involve systematic desensitization, similar to treatment of phobias. I'm not an expert in this area, but I've read a little about it. Here's what I know:

1. Make a list of all things related to the topic that make you anxious

2. Rank the list from the thing that causes the least anxiety to the thing that causes the most anxiety.

3. Start with the thing that causes the least anxiety and expose yourself to it for a fixed amount of time every day. Make sure you do not stop the exposure before the fixed amount of time lapses because of your anxiety, because avoidance will then become reinforced. You basically want to exposure yourself to the point that the anxiety peaks and then mostly goes away. It is VERY challenging. There are probably some resources on the web that can help with this - with cognitive thoughts you can review while exposing yourself (thoughts like, "this is uncomfortable, but not dangerous").

4. Once you have been able to exposure yourself to one item, move up your list to the next item. If the next item is too big of a step, then you need to find more intermediate steps to do it gradually.

Some ideas of things on a list for gross anatomy:

1. Books about gross anatomy with drawings, rather than pictures

2. Books (either surgery or anatomy books) that have actual pictures of internal organs. Maybe start with pictures of animal's organs and work your way up to humans. You can find books like this in the surgery section of a medical library.

3. Dissections of animals - starting with worms and frogs and working your way up - it may not be that easy to get access to these things, but maybe you know someone who can help you out?

4. It's obviously going to be difficult to get access to human's until you start your gross anatomy rotation. Then you'll just have to make the best of it

5. As for surgery rotations - I found actual surgery to be much less distressing than gross anatomy. You would probably be able to find a surgeon during your second year how would let you stand in on a few surgeries to get exposure before the actual rotation. There is a also a decent amount of surgery during ob/gyn rotations and you may be able to find a gyn doc who'll let you observe some procedures, starting with simple things and working your way up.

I'd suggest you try to find a psychologist who specializes in treatment of phobias - it would be unfortunate to avoid going through medical school because of this fear, but I would guess there are many people who do avoid medical school for this very reason.

While I don't want to encourage any avoidance, depending on the level of your discomfort, you should at least be aware of the option of becoming a clinical psychologist - which would avoid medical school entirely.