Having Your Pathology and Eating It Too
Just as our vernacular has embraced the language of food to describe people, so too has the medical community used such language to describe disease.
Just as our vernacular has embraced the language of food to describe people, so too has the medical community used such language to describe disease.
While I knew little about these patients at the beginning of the day, I always started out knowing one very important fact: they were already dead.
This house was once full of life / Layers of warmth and affection. / A fireplace, the heart of all
It was not until our second semester of medical school that we started gross anatomy. Finally, I became that quintessential medical student walking home too tired to change out of my formaldehyde-tinged scrubs.
Medicine is a sacrifice. I knew this upon admittance into medical school. I did not know the sacrifice would be an erosion of my humanity.
It’s okay to feel in the cadaver lab. It’s what your first patient wanted for you.
As I lifted my head away from my work, I realized that I was being watched. On the other side of the window was a group of five young women, mouths agape and eyes wide open. They were students, up and coming radiology technicians, brought here to observe. Their instructor was hoping to desensitize them to the harsh reality of death and prepare them for the day that they would venture here alone with mobile x-ray machines.
Open. / Open abdomens. / Idealized organs from Netter’s in the flesh.
Autumn has been my favorite season since moving to Oregon four years ago from the dry, unchanging desert landscape of Las Vegas, Nevada. The freeway towards my class dips into a valley surrounded by broad-leafed trees with ferns growing near the base of their trunks.
The morning that we met was one most medical students eagerly anticipate as they embark on the journey that is medical education. Excitedly I put on my first set of scrubs, elated to look like a “real” doctor. Beneath my external façade however, I was masking an underlying feeling of anxiety.
At Albany Medical College, upon our orientation to gross anatomy, we are asked to draw our feelings on blank index cards prior to entering the cadaver laboratory. As we progress through the year, our sentiments regarding anatomy may remain the same, or may change, and these drawings allow us to look back at this milestone we crossed as budding medical students.
At Albany Medical College, upon our orientation to gross anatomy, we are asked to draw our feelings on blank index cards prior to entering the cadaver laboratory. As we progress through the year, our sentiments regarding anatomy may remain the same, or may change, and these drawings allow us to look back at this milestone we crossed as budding medical students.