This article details one student’s first experience with a cadaver during an anatomy lab, and how it made him realize his desire to pursue medicine and the importance of independence.
The first step
Our footsteps echoed down the hallway of the lab. My friends’ faces were half nervous, half excited. I was also at a loss for words, and my mind was as white and blank as a blank sheet of paper. Unlike our usual frolics in lab coats and lab glasses, today was quiet. No one said a word, just got ready for the lab. As soon as I entered the lab, the strong, irritating formaldehyde that greeted me every day signaled the start of the lab. Just a few months ago, I never thought I would be in this position. As I walked into the lab, I realized that the moment I had been looking forward to was coming.
The trigger
In the United States, high school students who aspire to attend an Ivy League school, pre-med or pre-law, need to make the most of their summer vacation, the longest break in their four years of high school. For example, you can intern, take college courses, or participate in a large volunteer service project or research. During my sophomore summer, I decided to take an anatomy course in college. A pig dissection class in freshman biology led me to medicine and further clarified my dream of becoming a surgeon, so I applied to take anatomy during a summer course for high school students hosted by Brown University. The program, which gives high school students hands-on experience dissecting cadavers, was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, and it also gave me my first taste of living independently from my parents. I was very worried about whether I would be able to live and study safely and without any problems in the East, where I didn’t know anyone. Looking back, there were many firsts in that month. Flying alone for the first time, being away from my family for a month, dissecting a cadaver for the first time, living in college for the first time, and doing laundry for the first time. What started out as my interest in academics was my purpose for applying to Brown, but it ended up being an invaluable opportunity to taste the “being alone” and “independence” that is more important than academics.
I still remember it. I stared out the window after the plane landed in Rhode Island. My mind was racing with worries, from finding my suitcase to taking a taxi to Brown. Everything felt overwhelming. After arriving on campus in a taxi, an even bigger challenge awaited me. I had to find my dorm room alone in the summer heat and carry two suitcases up the stairs to my room on the second floor. Many students arrived on campus alone, but many came with their parents. There was no air conditioning in the room, so a fan was essential to beat the heat that summer. I still remember leaving school and running around the neighborhood shops by myself looking for a fan. Within 30 minutes, the dormitory assistant ordered us to assemble, so we ran around like we were on a hidden treasure hunt. I tasted the bitterness of independence that day. But when I saw my first cadaver lying in front of me for dissection, the hesitations about coming to Brown and the fear of my first independence that I had had a few months earlier vanished in an instant.
Realization
Scalpel and tweezers in hand, I studied the left arm of the cat we had been dissecting for a week now, and set out to find the common carotid arteries. Halfway through, however, the professor called our group into another lab connected to ours, so we left the cat and moved with the rest of the group. As we slowly walked into the cadaver lab, I could see a cadaver being removed from a large plastic bag, and for the first time in my life, I saw a cadaver. I had imagined that a corpse would resemble a wax statue, but the one in front of me looked alive. When I finally reached out my hand to touch its arm, it felt as if my heart had stopped beating. It was cold, wet, and heavy. My first “patient” was already dead.
With each practice, the stench of formaldehyde soaked into my clothes more intensely. But my aversion to dissecting cadavers slowly faded. On the fifth day of dissection, I opened the abdominal pelvic cavity. As I was observing, another student asked the professor what the stone-like object was: an aortic aneurysm. I stared at the aneurysm with curiosity. Is this what causes death? I couldn’t believe that something as small as my fist could have such a big impact on people. This aneurysm had the ability to take a precious life. This aneurysm had the ability to cause great suffering to others through the death of one person. There were countless things this aneurysm could do, but there was very little I could do as I stood there watching it. In that moment, for the first time, I felt helpless, and as a would-be doctor, I felt so miserable. Even though the body lying in front of me had passed away for other reasons before the aneurysm was found, I wondered if I, as a patient, would have been able to find and successfully treat the aneurysm if it had come to me as a doctor. I could not answer this question confidently, but at that moment it occurred to me that the corpse in front of me had given the last gift he could give as a human being to students who dreamed of becoming doctors. His last gift was his body itself, and he had given it to me and no one else. Because of this gift, I realized that I needed to learn his body through dissection as if I knew it intimately, and furthermore, I felt obligated to study hard in order to be able to use this knowledge to save and treat my future patients.
Determination
I will never forget that summer vacation. By experiencing cadaver dissection firsthand, I confirmed my curiosity about medicine and, more importantly, my desire to treat patients. I also learned early on about independence as a soon-to-be adult, and that in order to truly be an active member of society, one must be able to leave the arms of their parents and take care of themselves so that they can take care of others.
Exposure and observation reveals how vulnerable the heart, lungs, stomach, and other organs of the human body are. But when they all work together as a whole, they make up a human being with infinite possibilities. At Brown, I took my first steps toward medicine, and after a brief study of anatomy, I chose the path of a physician, albeit a difficult one. I could not be happier if I could live my life witnessing and interacting with the mysteries of the human body. Furthermore, I want to cherish in my heart for the rest of my life the happiness and pride I feel when I treat patients and see their health improve little by little. Now I have chosen a path where love and sorrow, hope and despair, life and death coexist, and I have begun to walk it. Most of all, I want to follow this path to the end because it is a path that contains the beauty of life.
