Formaldehyde wafted through the air. A white-haired man with a lab coat and large-framed glasses instructed us to unlatch our metal tanks. As the doors swung open, we made the rite of passage into medicine and met death. As a first-year medical student, I began to encounter the ironies of medicine. The foundation of medical practice, which works to preserve life, started with an examination of preserved death. A mistake here in the anatomy lab on the dead would be exceedingly safer than a mistake on the living.
The anatomy textbook sat on a stand at the end of my station propped open to the first page. The scalpel unzipped the body and unzipped the emotions of excitement mingled with questions. In a preservation of humanness, our group left the face covered as we worked. The initial awe of anatomy was soon replaced by the academics of anatomy. Page one now turned into page one hundred. The lessons focused on identification of structures: nerves, blood vessels, ligaments, muscles, and bones.
The day finally arrived to study the brain, the mysterious three-pound organ that housed the memories. The identity of structures jolted into thoughts about the identity of the cadaveric person.
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