Mortui vivos docent - The dead teach the living

Earlier this week we started anatomy lab. I hate it.

Part of the reason is the ridiculous inefficiency of it. We have no idea what we're doing so everything takes us so freaking long.

The other, more disturbing reason is that I can't bring myself to cut into our cadaver, Ms. Judy. Her fingernails are painted bright red. She has that wonderful short, curly hair that's popular among elderly women. Her muscles are tiny and she has mild scoliosis. Today we took a chisel and hammer to her back and knocked out her spine. How is that normal?

I understand it was her intent to donate her body in death for me to learn and help the living. But I cannot get over the feeling that I'm disrespecting her and mutilating her body. I cannot separate her being from the body that is lying in front of me. Did this frail, old woman know that this was what she was signing up for?

My dislike of dissection is not necessarily a fear of death. I've seen people die. I've worked on people who are dying. The newly dead aren't a problem for me, and the same goes for patients in surgery. The work of a surgeon is helping his patient in one way or another. Ms. Judy, on the other hand, is being taken apart piece by piece in a rather crude manner. It sucks.

My lab mates, on the other hand, have been incredible. They've done all the work the last couple of days while I've stood in the background adjusting their masks, hair, and goggles. I've benefited from their work because although I have no desire to cut our cadaver, it's pretty awesome to see the structures demonstrated on a human body.

Every time I glance at Ms. Judy's beautifully manicured fingernails, I remind myself that this was her exact intent. She wanted us to take her apart so we could better understand how she is put together. She may have not known the details of what it would take for us to learn, but her end-goal was clear.

I cannot let her incredible gift go to waste, so I suck it up and do what Ms. Judy would've wanted: learn about the human body by putting my hands inside her newly exposed spine.