A moment of ill-judged jest two decades ago has come back to haunt US medical students after “childish and disrespectful” photos of them mocking cadavers came to light.

The photos, dug up in old Yale Medical School yearbooks, show students posing with cadavers, with some captions laden with sexual innuendo, Yale News reports.

In one photo, a female medical student holds up a dissected hand and forearm, which is captioned, “A hand job”.

Another features a male student working over a torso with the caption, “Urologist at the wrong end of the body”.