Reflections on Clinical Anatomy

(journal entry from September 2nd, 2008)

Unnatural. The first word to cross my mind when we opened up the body bag on our first day of anatomy and saw the body of a woman cut from neck to naval was "unnatural." The aberrancy of the scene was worsened by the natural position of her body - she was lying off-center and had one knee slightly popped, with her hands resting palm-down at her sides. This was not the sterile picture of a cadaver that I had seen in text books. This was a woman who was dead and was lying with readily exposable organs in front of me.

Though the initial image was strikingly unnerving, after the initial shock wore off and we began to examine her internal organs I was more or less undisturbed. Before coming to lab on that first day I had tried to mentally prepare myself and put into perspective what I would be seeing and doing. On one hand, one could describe the ritual of anatomy lab as being grotesque. Students with little to no knowledge of the location of bodily organs try to gain an appreciation for said organs by burrowing elbow-deep in the innards of a complete stranger. One could also appreciate anatomy lab from a much more positive angle. In an indescribable act of altruism, 8 men and women donated their very bodies and thus gave all that they could in a profound, post-mortem way to further the education of 48 medical students who will one day improve the lives of the donors' children and their children's children. I had decided to take the latter of the two outlooks, and so as we reflected our donor's thoracic cage to expose the organs underneath, and as I picked up the towel laid across our donor’s head to peer at her face, I remembered and thanked God for her gift.

I’ve really enjoyed my time in the anatomy thus far. The internal structure of the body is something I’ve wanted to understand for years now. I love learning how things fit together to create a bigger picture, and I’ve always seen the body as a sort of a puzzle or black box; food goes in, life comes out. It is truly satisfying to unveil the mystery and see how intricately interwoven and meticulously designed our bodies are.