The thing people are most interested if you talk about university seems to be one room more than all the others put together. The dissecting room. Before I got to Manchester I've got to admit, it did seem by far the most interesting, I was kind of wondering how I'd handle it as well. I've never been squeamish but this was a whole other level to watching Saw.
But now that I've been there a few months, I've got used to it and I've discovered a few things which I thought I'd share about the DR:
- You can instantly gross out any non-medic with stories from the dissection room.
- Being in the dissection room makes you hungry. Ask anyone, they'll vouch for this, it's not just me :)
- The DR will turn many normal people into masochists that just want to cut shit up.
- Insides don't look like you'd imagine, with everything easy to see, they all blend into one.
- Being able to swipe into a restricted room makes you feel powerful.
- Nobody's a surgeon yet, cutting is harder than it looks.
- Anatomy demonstrators tend to have terrible communication skills, they deal with the dead for a reason.
On a more serious note, I really think that having cadavers is a massive help in learning medicine, they help you get a feel for what its actually like inside a body that you don't get with textbooks or prosections. So thanks to the people who donate their bodies each year and also to their families.
I got the inspiration to write about this from the Underappreciated Medical Student, sorry for nicking the idea :)
4 comments:
Even thinking about the dissection room makes me hungry!
Hi Chris!
I always found in the dissection room everyone started off very timidly making small cuts and by the end of the 2 years we were all a lot more into just forcing things and giving it a bit of force. It seemed to be what the demonstrators do!
As for why it makes you hungry, formaldehyde is an appetite enhancer! Don't feel bad, just go and have a snack afterwards (though probably not chicken!)
I've started to read your blog's everyday mate.. who knew you were so interesting? ;) Keep up the good work though - you really look like/read as you're enjoying what you do. I'm starting back at Uni on the 26th... perhaps this time i'll complete eh? Innabit cuz! xx
Ah, maybe that explains why the cafe in the medical school is always so busy after anatomy.
We've already started to get past the careful cutting stage after a few months. In fact, most of the 'gross' stories I talked about are because of people being a little too forceful!
Cheers Mark, yeah I got told about that, good luck :)
x
Post a Comment