Archive for August, 2003
Medical School: Day 1
August 11th, 2003Today was the first day of medical school. Well not quite…it was the first day we had to be present on campus, because our week of orientation started today. How was it? Pretty boring.
My day included the usual series of beginning-of-the-year administrative activities…standing in line, picking up packets, making chit-chat with other first-year students, standing in more lines, getting student ID photos taken, making more small talk with others, and finally getting assigned to my MDL (multidisciplinary lab), a room of 24 first-year students, each with a cubicle, with the goal of making our medical school class of 160 seem a little more personal. Apparently we’ll get to know these 24 people well over the year. We’ll also get to know our ICM of 6 even better, since we’ll be going to ICM together (Intro to Clinical Medicine, where we go to a hospital once a week). This group will also be my dissection group for Gross Anatomy. Can’t wait for that to start…
Anyway it was a pretty uneventful day, except for the countless welcome lectures. That’s about it. Let’s see how the first real day of med school goes next week.
Gross
August 29th, 2003Today was the first day of Gross Anatomy, the (in)famous course all first year med students have to take. A few days ago we had lengthy lecture telling us what to do and what not to do (to or with our cadaver), and the sorts punishment we’d get if, for example, we took parts out of the lab or brought visitors into the lab…so we figured we’d head down to the Gross lab immediately.
But no. Before we headed down, we had a Donor Recognition Presentation, which was like an “opening ceremony” of sorts to show respects to those who donated bodies to this program. It would have been a good idea had it been short and not religious, but it turned to be the complete opposite. Organizing and leading this 1 hour long (!) ceremony were two deans of religious affairs (who knew there was such a position anyway?) who passed out handouts filled with ridiculous poems, songs, and other essays. We then followed along as they chanted these words with such strange voice inflections that I felt as if I were in some sort of cult…a cult that honored the legs of cadavers for helping them “run fast” in life. At one point, they read through a creepy ass poem (in the loosest sense of the word) and we had to chant back after them, call-and-response style.
Anyway, not only did this ceremony probably not achieve what it intended to, but it actually made it hard to keep a straight face. As much as I didn’t want to smirk during a ceremony like this, I know I didn’t suppress all of it. What a shame…it was really a cheesy hour.
We finally headed off to the Gross lab for our first dissection, and seeing our cadaver for the first time was a little strange. We slowly took off all the layers of shrouds, sheets, and covers, and finally saw her body. We didn’t even take the cloth off her face, but it still caught me off-guard more than I expected. A few girls actually fainted (I’m sure it was a result of that ceremony, as it probably made them overly anxious).
The next three hours were spent dissecting the back. And I don’t exaggerate when I say we spent the vast majority of those hours skinning the body and trying to remove all the fat from the back. Fat, in case you are curious, is disgusting. Alive or dead. If nothing else, at least Gross Anatomy has already taught me to not get fat.
Also, at my request we named our cadaver Eleanor, in honor of a girl that I “liked” back in Baltimore. BTW, in case you’re thinking of commenting on this, don’t.