The spring semester started up a week and a half ago. We've had two tests so far, and they both felt like finals. It seems like I'm continually stuffing new words into my brain, and they usually just take the place of other words. I can tell you where your extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle is, what nerve innervates it, and what bones it connects to, but have trouble telling the person at Dunkin Donuts what type of tea I want. It usually just comes out in a jumble of out-of-order words, and when I get a blank stare back, I just say "green tea is good".
This semester has been different from the first one in a lot of ways - some good, some bad. Last semester was all about genetics and tiny little molecules that float around in your body. We looked at everything from a cellular, microscopic level. This semester is all about visible anatomy (in this next section I talk about my experience in the anatomy lab - if that makes you uncomfortable feel free to skip down to the pictures!).
On our first day of class we went down to the anatomy lab to "meet our first patient". This consisted of joining the other three students in our lab group and examining the cadaver that we had been assigned to. The only thing we knew about the person was their name, gender, and cause of death. Our cadaver was Margaret.
Honestly this first encounter was pretty difficult for me. I had the sudden realization that all of the 26 bodies in the room had families, and that they each had a story. I didn't feel like I should have the privilege of dissecting my cadaver - it felt like an invasion of privacy, like I would find out more than I should know. On the second or third day of lab, for example, we found a small porta-cath that had been implanted under her skin. These are usually used for continual drug delivery, often in the treatment of cancer. Margaret had died from a cardiopulmonary event, but we realized that she may been going through chemo treatments toward the end of her life as well. We looked at the back and spine, and I wondered if she had back pain (since 80% of people do at some point in their life). I wonder what she was like, if she was happy and charismatic or sad and grouchy. I wonder how she touched other people's lives and what she did for a living. It's a strange realization that you know so little, and yet so much, about a person. I also realized that we all end up in the same place and that our time here is so short, that we must take advantage of it.
After the initial experience, once we were inside the body, a lot of those thoughts went away. I still have moments where the reality of what I'm doing hits me heavily, like when we dissected the hands and I had to hold her hand as my lab-mate made the incisions. Shaking a person's hand is often the only physical contact we have with people we don't know, so it was an interesting emotion that I felt as I positioned Margaret's hand.
I know it's only been two and a half weeks since school started, but I feel like studying anatomy has changed me. I have developed a great respect for the people who decided to donate their bodies to science to help us learn. I feel like what I'm doing actually matters, and I'm excited to be able to eventually help real patients some day. And finally, I'm acutely aware of the brevity of life and how we must make the most of every moment. It's our relationships that matter the most, and I'm determined to not miss out on living while I plow through the next few years of medical school.
On a lighter note, Casey and I went to his company holiday party last December. It was at a restaurant / bar called The Darby - a swanky place near Union Square where local celebs are known to hang out. Here's a few pics:
We also went to a party that Cornell sponsored which was at a place called City Hall Restaurant. It had different rooms for dancing, eating, lounging, and partying. The theme of the party was The Beautiful and the Damned - basically a 1920's event that some people dressed up for and others didn't. There were about 415 people there, so not everyone stuck to the theme. Here are pictures from that:
And finally, for New Years Eve we went to a masquerade party in Brooklyn. Not gonna lie, it was kind of weird. But hey, that's Brooklyn for ya. The entertainment for the night included an acrobat and a swing band (both of which were pretty cool), indoor fireworks (semi-dangerous), and a quickly-thrown-together band at the end that relied way too heavily on their portable siren. No joke. Here's a picture from that night:
Happy New Year everyone! And hopefully it won't be so long until the next post.
