A group of Yale students and a senior orthodontics professor have been censured after the discovery of a selfie taken with a severed head.
The photos were taken at Yale school of Medicine in June 2017 during the DePuy Synthes Future Leaders Workshop, which was focussed on dental-related facial deformities, the Associated Press reports.
Assistant professor and orthodontics program director at the University of Connecticut, Dr Flavio Uribe, and a visiting associate professor at Yale school of Medicine are in the images.
In the image Dr Uribe and several graduate students look at the camera while others around them continue to work.
Two severed heads are pictured in the photo lying on nearby tables face up.
Dr Uribe said he wasn't quite sure what was happening when the photo was taken as he was busy teaching students how to put screws in cadaver heads.
"Somebody unfortunately took a photo," he told the Associated Press.
"It was so quick. I wasn't sure of the surroundings or scenery at that point."
The photo was obtained on condition of anonymity from somebody who was sent it as part of a group chat.
They said the person who originally took the photo would not give permission to publish it due to a fear of being expelled.
Officials at both UConn and Yale say the appropriate steps will be taken to speak to students and staff about the image and the photo was highly inappropriate.
"The photograph taken at a symposium at Yale was disturbing and an inexcusable deviation from anything Yale would expect to occur," Yale spokesperson Thomas Conroy said in a statement.
According to Mr Conroy the symposium was not a part of the Yale anatomy program and the heads in question were not donated to the university.
It is not clear how they were obtained.
Newshub.
