Dissection, cadavers and us
Today was the second time I have stepped into the dissection room and placed blade to dead flesh. I have been doing this for the past 3 years, so it is really nothing new to me. However, this year I have been joined by BSc. Anatomy and BSc. Anatomy and Physiology students, who have not really been dissecting at all prior to this year. I come to realize the different mind set science students have compared to us, medics. I also realize that my perspective on dissection of a cadaver has changed since I started as a medical student in first year. Indeed, there are many books that write about entering the “Anatomy Room”, so reading those would perhaps give you a more descriptive account of emotions experienced. However, I’ll write my own experience here in short, because a lot of people who know me or start to know me always ask what it is like to cut open a human being. I’ll talk about surgical incisions on living people perhaps in another post.
The topic of the day was the lungs, and the thorax all over again, something I have already learnt in first year. The first thing I heard from my fellow colleagues when I reached the cadaver table was about their feeling of guilt after dissecting for the first time on Monday. They felt astonished that they were cutting a human being and one of their parents even started getting sick over the phone when told about the practical. Monday was the nth time I have dissected so I kind of felt distant from their feelings and just managed a grin and light laugh to show I am listening rather than agreeing. However, this made me think of first year, when I first entered the dissection room the 1st week of university. I don’t remember feeling guilty at all, but I do recall I was in disbelief that I had done something like this at 18. After that, I never felt the same disbelief again, as I was fascinated by the human body. Guilt was never in the picture. You might think I am a heartless person, but to think that the cadavers are people who donated their body for the continuation of medical education and study of the human body, I believe feeling guilty is something that would disappoint their intentions and sacrifice. I would rather concentrate in learning about the human body, to show that I treasure this resource they have provided and also respecting their final wishes, which perhaps is an extra bit of meaning to their lives. For, through us, they would become immortal in a Shakespearean elegant way, because we would soon then teach our knowledge on to the next generation of medics, scientists and anyone that may be required of such knowledge.
One of my fellow dissection table friends also got kind of sick on the first day and did not even touch the cadaver, something that I also could not understand but can sympathise. I think when I first dissected, fear of ruining structures within the body that I need to keep intact, much like a surgical procedure, was more prominent than fear of touching the cadaver. In fact, I think I was too fascinated after doing the first incision to even think about if the cadaver is gross at all. In my opinion, it is not gross at all. After all, you do not think your own body is disgusting, you do not think a dead skinned chicken before it is cooked abhorring either, so why think that way of a cadaver. I cannot comprehend in that sense. They were once human too, and thinking of them as gross is more disrespectful than anything else. So what do I feel now about dissecting cadavers? An enjoyable activity I would say. I think of it as a specimen, not a human being because its life have been robbed from it through nature’s course. Yet, I still respect it to be once human and a person that was once loved, once lived, once who was like anyone else.
A lot of people ask if there is still blood in the cadaver, and the answer is yes, clotted blood much like scabs you get when you get a cut - a platelet-fibrin clot. Some people ask if the smell of the cadaver smells like rotten flesh. It does not smell like that at all because of the embalming fluid used to preserve the body, which in my case is the smell of formaldehyde. Some people also ask if I look at humans and even people close to you as less of a human and more like a machine, because of your learning experience. I would have said no, because if so my job would be a lot easier, as I would not need to ask about your worries with regards to your symptoms and sympathise with sick patients. In fact, if I answered you truthfully, then I would have rhetorically asked you why I am even bothering to talk to you? As you can see, I am not any different from any other person.
Medics might have a different perspective to things, but that’s just like saying everyone takes on different views of things in life. An analogy would be someone being able to believe in god and someone who cannot. It’s only such a difference that makes us able to cut open a human, nothing more.
Image taken from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/photogalleries/cadavers_exhibition_museum/index.html
