It wasn’t a funny scene, looking
at fellows, who were once like
you are, breathed, moved
around, had fun and shared the
pains, lived with ambitions and
goals, but now supine on the
dissection tables, everything
but life.
The air was very strong,
saturated with deep smell of
formaldehyde, or whatever that
mixture was, and I wasn’t even
with a surgeon’s mask, damn!
I had to make use of my
handkerchief as I couldn’t take
it any longer, the irritating odour
diffusing freely with reckless
abandon, through my nostrils.
What if my catarrh wasn’t
treated last week? I thought, my
nostrils would have been like a
borehole, oozing out water
uncontrollably.y
Looking around, I saw my
colleagues, some with stern
faces, others really emotional
while some others wore bright
faces, grinned and bared their
teeth.
Really? In such an environment?
Damn!
There were stories of medical
students fainting on seeing
cadavers, cases of dissection
rooms with graveyard silence,
even though being filled with
students. But the case here,
being our first time, was very
different.
What more would you expect
from a generation that have
already been sensitised,
through the social media, with
horrific images and clips, of
which they’ve been accustomed
to. Why would dead bodies
mean much anymore ?
“Choose among you two people in each group to dissect the professor”, the voice of our instructor blared on the
blared through the speakers.
Hesitantly, two of my group members volunteered to dissect the professor “professor
as it was called, and lying
before us, was a well-built huge
young man, who was everything
human, but life.
It was being refered to as
professor, cos
Though it can’t talk, it was
going to teach us.
Though it was lifeless, it was
going to make us appreciate the
lives we have.
We read and read again of
structures of which we can only
imagine in our heads, or at best
view in the diagramatic
depictions of the legendary
Frank Netter’s atlas of human
anatomy, but here, the
professor would be showing us
firsthand, the structures we
read of and how they traverse
the body.
Should we think of being proud,
it would teach us absolute
humility.
A professor indeed!
Looking over the body, I
couldn’t help imagining what a
handsome he was when blood
still flowed through its vessels.
But, I had a hard time making
out what the cause of death
could have been.
Just in the deltopectoral groove
was a gunshot wound, and its
right chest was pierced deeply
by what seemed to be a knife
stab. But then, through the
median line of his head, a deep
cut exposed its skull and went
further to peel off the skin with
the underlying subcutaneous.
Could it be gunshot or a
accident victim, I wondered, and
at the same time tried
imagining him take his last
breath.
Incisions after incisions, I tried
concentrating so as to see the
Cephalic and Basilic veins that
we were meant to see, including
the suprascapular nerve and its
cutaneous branches. But now
and again, I couldn’t help
thinking that someday any day,
a time which might not be too
far away, I would share the
condition of “absolute
unconsciousness” which the
professor was in, the only
uncertainty being just the time.
So what am I to do? Simple!
Learn as much as I can from
the “professor”, appreciating it
for the priceless gift it offered,
and do my best all for the
divine goal of saving lives, till I
reach the dead end.
I retired after the day’s stress to
my hostel room exhausted. I
left my position on the bed and
laid on the floor trying to close
my eyes and grab some sleep,
but I couldn’t. Thoughts about
the events of those awkward
moments in the dissection hall,
kept ringing in my mind.
“That could be somebody’s
father. For sure, someone’s
son. He could be anyone’s
brother.” I kept ruminating on
these.
But then I realized, those
thoughts wouldn’t help me in
any bit, cos I have got volumes
to cover, and emotional
downturn can only deplete me.
So what am I gonna do again ?
Pretend like nothing happened,
forced myself and grabbed a
little nap. Woke up fully
energized and continued my
close romance with my
“Volumes”.
For this is what I signed for.
Vanity upon vanities, Everything is vanity.(Ecclesiastes 1:2)
Please encourage me with your upvote
Thank you
Andy