I swear to you, Monday was the first day of medical school. Maybe not really, but everything I dreamed medical school would be began this week. We delved into bodies, discussed real medical cases like House and his team, put on scrubs and wore rubber gloves, and got used to the smell of formaldehyde. Our first lecture was about the history of human dissection and the advancements of medicine through understanding the human form. We learned about embryology and the origin of life, as well as the anatomy of the back. After lunch we took our first steps into the anatomy lab to see our cadaver. On Tuesday, we cut.During the lectures, I didn't think about what I was about to do. Not until I crossed the threshold into the lab did it hit me, literally. The wafting odor of formaldehyde and embalming fluid was my wake-up call. I'm going to actually cut into a human body! Someone who was alive, who was breathing and walking and talking not too long ago. A real person... As you walk through the double doors into the room, 20 blue cadaver bags lie in front of you, each entombing a different person with a different story. It's a sobering thought. All the hours I spent in the OR with living, sedated people were inadequate. There, I was working with surgeons to make someone whole or better: remove a tumor, gallbladder, or give someone a chance to walk again with a new knee. In anatomy, each person is going to be made unwhole: we will see every nerve, vessel, bone, and muscle. We will cut off skin, legs, and even make incisions through this person's face, skull, and brain. We will barely be able to piece the body back together by Thanksgiving. And yet this is the ultimate sacrifice given to the medical student. It is the only way to truly understand the human form.
Most groups give a name to their cadaver. We haven't yet, in part because we did not look at his face until today (yes "he" is a very elderly man). Some people took the towels covering the face off immediately on Monday, I'm not sure why. For us, not seeing the face made what we were doing more okay or less dirty, or perhaps we were just ashamed. I'm not sure. It's easier to cut into someone's chest wall if he isn’t staring right at you. If he can't see us, he doesn't know who's doing this to him. And we don't know who we're doing this to. But once I saw the face today, I was honestly on edge. Suddenly this body that we've been bluntly and shamelessly carving into for the past week was no longer a body, he was a person again, at least for me. Some medical schools wrap the face and hands until they are part of the dissection. The hands I don't have a problem with seeing, but the face... Whose husband was this? Whose father? Whose grandfather? Whose son??
We went too slow on the first day. We were too careful. Daniel M. and I made the first cuts. We had to turn the body over so it was lying in the prone position, and we cut across the back, all the way from the coccyx to the base of the skull, starting in the middle, moving in opposite directions. With no idea how deep to go, we barely broke the dermis on our first attempt. We were timid. We then made perpendicular incisions all the way to the sides, and peeled layers of skin, fat, and fascia back over the table. He was now exposed, and there was no turning back. Our hands were probing muscles and tissues that most people never see, that he himself never saw...
It was truly an honor. I only hope I can be so generous with my body.
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