I added another item to my list today. Friday afternoon, they ushered us into the - wait for it - yup, you got it - cadaver lab. As my lab group of 8 surrounded the body bag, I was certain everyone, despite his/her best efforts to remain calm, had a heart racing 200km/hour.
As the body bag opened up, we saw the tiny embalmed body. I should say, actually, we smelled the body prior to actually seeing her. No, this wasn't a group activity. It's just nearly impossible to escape the rush of formaldehyde seeping out of the cadaver and into every nook and cranny of the students' clothing.
She was face down and most of the body was still wrapped up in yet another towel. Since we were only looking at the back, we just proceeded to unwrapping the back. I was taken aback that the skin was looking mighty preserved. I don't know why I was expecting flesh like a live person. Perhaps too much Hollywood morgue scenes. Anyway, imagine a class of 306 students and roughly 40 cadavers with skin that resembled much like the fetal pigs that you dissect in biology class.
Next step - incision. This actually turned out to the easiest part of the lab. Once the initial shock was over, removing the skin off was only 10% disgusting, 30% awkward, another 10% Texas-chainsaw-esque and the remaining 50% was awesomeness. We removed the fat and observed all the muscles of the back. Layer by layer, we checked out the structures that help us do everything from giving a high-5 to sitting up. Think about that the next time you're moving around.
It's pretty cool to have gone through all of that in the first week of medical school. It's pretty hard to not have a new appreciation for the human body. Yes, even with all the formaldehyde and sticky fat tissues.
