Anatomy

Anatomy has finally started! On Friday we had our first anatomy lecture, which involved using pencil crayons to colour in most of the anatomy of the chest. It was insanely fast paced. Our anatomy prof is absolutely amazing -- definitely one of the funniest profs I've ever looked at / listened to.

After this introduction we were taken up to the cadaver labs and introduced to our cadavers. That day all we did is basically stand over the bodies and expose their chests. I was definitely more anxious than I thought I would be for the uncovering of our bodies. I think it was just the big work up to the event (i.e. all of the lectures on professionalism, death and dying, respecting the wishes of the donor, etc.). And also the fact that it stinks in the anatomy lab like formaldehyde and phenol.

All of the anxiety I felt on Friday was definitely gone by this afternoon however. Today was our first day of cutting. We cut through the skin along the sternum and the costal angles along the rib cage. Its crazy how easily a scalpel will cut through flesh! We then proceeded to cut "finger holes" in the chest wall so we could pull the skin off and cut away the underlying superficial fascia (fat). It was awesome! We continued to dissect the pec major muscles. Its amazing how tough nerves are! Blood vessles rip very easily, but the nerves are like tough threads. We had our hands deep inside the body, underneath the pec majors, feeling around for the lateral pectoral nerves. It was so cool!

Now I'm not so sure that surgery would be that horrible of a position. I would still like to have patient contact in whatever specialty I end up in, so up until this point I hadn't really been considering surgery.