Contributing Writer
Northeast Ohio Medical University
When I opened up the gurney for the first time, I expected to be overcome with this profound, epiphanic wave of emotion. I thought this would be one of those slow motion, cinematic, defining moments in my training. I thought I would be solemn. I thought I would be grateful. I thought I would be curious. I wasn’t.
A poem about gross anatomy from our writer-in-training Damien Zreibe.
The pathologist is doling out defective baby hearts from a dripping plastic tub. A few drops splash onto the student next to me. The pathologist claims it is just water. Water, and dead baby heart juice, that is. All of these baby hearts have congenital defects, and the ones we hold now each have a ventricular septal defect, a big hole in the middle of their heart that killed them. We have been allotted fifteen …
as I walk away from your linoleum tomb I run my tongue over cracked lips for the first time and they are no longer attached but hanging like you were and will always be suspended from cold mental concrete waiting for warm hands to pull you down and then pull you apart before your body bursts into a thousand crisp autumn leaves and the wind scoops you up scatters beautiful bright sun droplets over your …
I stared at Her remains, all of the little bits and pieces. It was the last day of gross anatomy and I wanted the moment to feel important. I wanted Her to know what it had meant. The sacrifice. As we zipped up the Tyvek bag, I wanted Her to hear angelic voices and heavenly bells. It was what She deserved; it was what they all deserved. To hear John Taverner when we placed her …
Author’s note: Every spring, the University of Louisville School of Medicine holds a Convocation of Thanks to honor those who donated their bodies for our gross anatomy lab and to express our appreciation to their families. Students are invited to perform in a variety of ways: via music, singing, or reading pieces to express their gratitude. The following is my submission for this year’s Convocation. In the four years prior to medical school, I served as a …
They are your first patients we were told. And like with later patients, with them we shared discovery, struggles and triumphs. I learned from each and every one, so much, so generously, each and every day. But unlike any other patients I will ever know, when I was with them I was in the presence of extraordinary grace and giving. And in those moments when the sky was darkening outside the windows and the …
By this the time of year, most first-year medical students have finished with anatomy. Anatomy: for most of us, this course is our first time seeing a deceased human being in an academic setting. And for some of us, the first cut we make on the first day of anatomy is the first cut we make on a person’s flesh. Sound scary? It did to me. But it also sounded amazing. To me, anatomy seemed …
When we pulled back the crimson tarps, other than his abnormally impressive endowments, Mr. S did not strike me in the profound fashion I had anticipated upon witnessing a cadaver up close for the first time. After some reflecting (and a brief self-doubt as to whether I possessed sociopathic tendencies), I concluded that this was due to the acceptance that death is a very natural part of life and seeing its consequences ceased to stun …
To have peeled back the sanguine face / The feat of passive genius now replaced / The strident stars succumbed to youthful grace / In half-scanned scalpels hot to nature’s plate.
From the pectoral region dissection on August 1 until our final practical in December, we have undergone one of the most intimate and transformative experiences in medicine: dissection of our cadavers. Shared by only the select few who have taken this journey in medicine before us, our cadaver donors—our first patients—have given us a glimpse of what it means to be a doctor. Our donors are the first completely vulnerable set of bodies with which we …
I know his hands so very well. I get beneath the skin. I discover what could make them tremble Or cause the dorsum hairs to stand on end. I intimately study these hands That are—or, were— Eighty-three years old. An image is permanently burned into my mind. I hold his hand to reposition his arm, As if it were that of a living person. I wonder who held it last Before I …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
Lisa grew up in Houston, Texas, went to college in the lovely town of Denton, and moved to Chicago to begin medical school in 2010. She is planning on a career in family medicine. Her academic interests include integrative medicine, mindfulness, nutrition and women's health. Her personal interests include poetry, cooking, yoga, and seeking out all the ways these areas of life overlap.
