Back to... Anatomy??
Surgery has always been and will always be first and foremost about anatomy. This week, as part of our summer anatomy series during residency, I had the unique opportunity to fully dissect two cadaveric human upper extremities. I spent about 9 or 10 hours in there total finding arteries, tendons, ligaments, and of course bones. It's been a long while since I've spent anywhere near that amount of time in an anatomy lab, but it felt sort of good to be back. In fact, I appreciated it much more this time around than when I was a first-year medical student who knew next to nothing about surgical technique or anatomy. Back in medical school, I was just following the prescribed anatomical dissections in the book (when I could, anyway) and not looking for anything in particular. "Oh, look, there's another vein... that I mistakenly cut through. Wonder if they'll tag it on the practical? Hope I don't fail." It was a lot like scuba diving, as described by ...