The Curious Scalpel

As the title of this post clearly indicates, we started work on the brain yesterday.  Also, in a brilliant display of timing, yesterday was the day that we hosted pre-med college students in our anatomy labs to show them what anatomy is like and talk them over some of their apprehensions.  Surprisingly, the ones I saw were mostly okay with what was going on before their eyes.  Our student handled it really well, watching (from a distance) as we freed the brain from its housing and asking questions throughout, though he said that it would probably hit him on the ride home and he'd start getting nauseous.   It was definitely an oscillating-saw day.  The skull, as any boxers out there might know, is a fairly effective protector for the jellylike brains within (to an extent).  We really had to work at it to free the brain .  We first removed the scalp, exposing the skull bones beneath.  We then cut through the bone around the widest part of the sku...

Today we reached the skull .  I'm sure many people wonder about that image, especially when they see someone with an especially round face, or a long face, or a heart-shaped face or whatever. Not everyone has that angular, skeletal look that strongly hints at what lies beneath. Sometimes, you might wonder whether Matt Damon and Lawrence Fishbourne  could possibly have such similar bone structure, but in fact they do.   Our cadaver, Ralph, had more of a Fishbourne-eque face, rounded and with softer features, but guess what?  Remove the skin, some fatty layers, muscular layers, and viola -  classic skull.   It's a strange thought for some, that everyone's bony structure looks the same, but others who may have lost (or gained) significant amounts of weight might be all too familiar with the way facial features can change drastically with the loss or gain of some extra fat (or a facelift).  It just goes to show, once again, that we all are way mo...

I've always liked putting things together, I'm kind of artistic, and I don't mind blood and guts.  So I figured that naturally, I'd make a good surgeon. So tonight, I went to a club event where they taught how to suture and had free pizza. The pizza was good.  I also discovered that suturing is fun (we practiced on fresh, still bloody, pig's feet ).  I'm also not terrible at it, which is a relief. Then I came home and practiced some "microsurgery", by which I mean taking some links out of my new watch. Unfortunately, it takes a little bit more training to be an officially qualified, board-certified surgeon.  Sigh, someday...

You would think that the facial dissection is the most traumatic, and you would probably be right.  It's an area of "high emotional impact," they say, which means that you associate with it, or feel like it would be painful.  That, our instructors explained, is why my medical school pushes it off until later.  Some other schools, which shall remain nameless, BEGIN with the face, on the first day of school.  Maybe it's to show the students that medical school is not easy, or that they have to be self-important showoffs to be good at their job, I don't know.  But I do know that it's really nice of our course directors to take our mindset into consideration when designing the curriculum.  It's further proof that our teachers are not trying to give us undue nightmares, or scare us into studying harder, rather choosing to focus their efforts on teaching us in the most efficient and useful way possible. In any event, I said that you would probably be right. ...

Yeah, it's about that time.  We just got back from break on Monday, and we began a new unit in Anatomy - the Head&Neck.   Queasies , consider yourselves warned... I can't be highlighting entire posts, that would seriously cramp my style. Anyway, with this region come many new and/or exciting things, like finding out what those glands in your neck look like, performing a cricothyrotomy (that's the procedure T.V. docs are constantly shown performing, with a ball-point pen and a knife, by punching a hole in someone's throat to give them an airway), and seeing the muscles that control a smile.  This should provide a lot of interesting things to think about.  But I have to learn all the parts of the skull now, so for now, let's just say I owe you one.