Gross Anatomy

We had anatomy lab on our first full day of class. I realized at that point what I was in for. There was little preparation, no buttering us up for what was going to happen. It was the first day of school, and they handed us a scalpel and said, "Here are your cadavers. Go to it." As if we had an inkling of what we were doing.

Gross anatomy happens to be one of the defining experiences of medical school. Few other professions require training where one cuts apart a human body. When I came in, I had anxiety about it. Not too much, but enough. I wasn't sure how I felt about this endeavor or how to approach it. I have never been in a situation like this.

Luckily, a good friend from high school is in my anatomy group. Two other members of the group have done anatomy before. All of us are mature and professional. Roaming professors, physical therapy students, residents, and faculty help us out. It is not that the experience becomes completely detached and scientific; we appreciate that this person made an ultimate sacrifice to education, giving everything he had. I approached this exercise at first with great apprehension and hesitation. But over time, I have gotten much more comfortable.

We have, so far, dissected the muscles of the chest, back, and abdomen, opened up the abdominal cavity to locate those organs, studied the lungs and heart in situ, and examined the spinal cord. We have performed some clinical procedures including a chest tube, a cricothyroid emergency airway, and a lumbar puncture.

All in all, I am not enthralled. The experience is smelly, dirty, and slightly repulsive as you cut through tissue and reflect skin and muscle to locate organ. But I do realize that it is infinitely educational; there is nothing like looking at a real human heart with its great vessels. A book cannot teach us in the same way as this hands-on approach. I see how it is a necessary part of medical education. It has a morbid fascination, a scientific beauty, and a humanistic realism. Death takes on a new face, and as doctors, we have to recognize this and appreciate those who have made such a sacrifice. We realize that we have to distill from this experience as much as we can, since it is unique and fundamental to understanding the human body.