Human body dissection: The human component

I have to admit that I was nervous about anatomy lab. Dissecting a human cadaver is a big deal. Even the term "cadaver" is technical and dry, a euphemism to push from our minds that this body sitting in front of us used to have life. "It" wasn't just male or female, rather a man or a woman who experienced joy and sadness, love and heartbreak, just like I or anyone else have ever felt.

The person who I am dissecting during the next 9 weeks was a woman of short stature and light complexion. She was 80 years old when she passed away from "geriatric decline and dementia." Did she die alone in a nursing home, or is she survived by loved ones who are perhaps still mourning her passing? Why did this woman decide to donate her body for this purpose? Going into my first day of dissection, I refused to let go of these questions because I didn't want to see her as just a cadaver.

This anatomy dissection course is structured so that 8 medical students are assigned to one cadaver, with 4 students dissecting at one time. It happened that I was in the first group responsible for making the "first cut," which so far has been the most difficult moment for me. Until then, I had the luxury to hold onto my imaginings of the life of the woman lying before me, to preserve the human condition.

I was surprised, though, by how quickly that luxury evaporated once my lab mate made the first cut. Suddenly, the woman lying on the dissection table became an "other," an object that I could disassociate from my own personal human experience. That transformation itself was a little frightening to me. I want to stress that I didn't - and I haven't - lost the capacity to view the woman who I am dissecting as a human being; rather, I have gained the ability to partition those thoughts and to view her body as a tool for learning anatomy, in order that I may better tend the illnesses and injuries of those bodies that are still alive as I become a doctor.

Coincidentally, the woman who I am dissecting passed away on the same day that I was admitted to this program. That coincidence holds special meaning for me.