This wasn't full on dissection but ... my father was dating a coroner, who really wanted me to go to med school. However, my father was also ridiculously squeamish, to the point where even a few drops of blood could result in a faint. So, she decided to take me to an autopsy she had to sign off on, to see if I was also as delicate. My father refused to even enter the building, but there I am, with my first cadaver, which was a suicide.
Local laws dictated that all bullet fragments be removed, and since it was a low-caliber bullet the man had fired into his head, it mostly bounced around in there. Originally, they had drilled a discreet hole and were trying to get everything out that way, but eventually had to do the full rectangle, with a Stryker autopsy saw.
Suffice to say that I do not have my father's squeamishness.
Random side note but feinting at the sight of blood isn't necessarily a squeamish thing. I remember when we were learning to place IV's and the med student a row over from me warned he would feint. The nurses teaching us tried to re-assure him but he interrupted -- "Oh I'm not squeamish or scared or anything, its just a reaction to blood specifically".
(TY for sharing your story btw, thought the aside was interesting enough to tangent on)
Phlebotomist insisted I look away while she took my blood for testing, I'm pretty certain I would be fine, but I suppose one can't really know short of experience, and she's had enough people gain a bad experience not to want to let anyone gain any!
Surely a med student needs to overcome that though? Even going into say.. radiology, it seems bound to happen from time to time, isn't that just really inconvenient for everyone, embarrassing even for the doctor (by then) himself?
Oh, his squeamishness was legendary. Despised horror films or too-graphic war movies. I saw him stop in his tracks, stagger back, and turn white upon seeing a fake dead rat from a Tom Sawyer costume. (And guess who had to bury the family pets?)
No. I ended up with a rare metabolic disorder that reacts very poorly with lack of sleep or even skipping meals and, as such, decided the usual hazing rituals associated with med school would be a very poor idea. Ironically, I ended up diagnosing the disorder looong before the M.D.s would consider it and had to twist their collective arms for the tests, so it isn't like I wouldn't have been a good fit in a diagnostic aspect.
Firstly, its surprising that this school allows what would apparently be the lay public gain access to human anatomical gifts. In Canada, this is restricted to persons with a legitimate interest, ie med students and grad students in bioengineering/bio-adjacent fields.
I think that the author is not an individual with such an interest was quite clear from the tone taken on this piece - most discussions involving cadavers are quite respectful of the fact that they are working on the mortal remains of a person; for some reason the way this piece was written felt almost disrespectful.
Speaking from first-hand, I can't remember any disrespectful behavior. Acting disrespectful toward the donor (what we called the cadavers) would get you kicked out of anatomy lab. There is even a "gift of body" ceremony commemorating the donations every year that family members can attend. Med students will speak about how the donors impacted their medical education and how much they appreciate them.
I would hope that tales of inappropriate jokes of posing with body parts are relegated to a bygone era.
Fwiw I would have no issue donating my body to my institution for dissection. I certainly benefited from the donation. Some notable memories:
- The brittleness and crunchiness of an atherosclerotic artery compared to the pliable rubber hose of a healthy artery
- How incredibly soft lungs are -- like a tempur-pedic pillow. Unless the donor had been a smoker. Then the lungs were hard and black-spotted like a pumice stone.
- The muscular atrophy of old age. There were some donors whose abdominal muscles were as thin as paper.
- Holding a donors brain in one's hand (it's smaller than one would expect). In the words of a lab partner, "I can't believe we are holding everything that made this person a person, all their personality, everything."
First-hand, every session that involved cadavers during medical school was very respectful. We were told not to take photos as well. Worst part was the smell of formalin. Humour is fine, assuming the person/cadaver would have been okay with it (and quite a few of the older patients I've met joke about their mortality). But I would rather be respectful and play it safe.
Others demanding a "respectful" treatment, usually mean, that handling, diposal and research on remains, should be treated by a seperate group of persons. One which they usually shun socially, should they ever talk about or discuss there work or parts of it. So the respectful treatment, is actually code for "I do not want to talk about that, or engage with that, unless i must."
Meanwhile, pathology is such a interesting science. Especially the quite visual signs of self inflicted decay due to substance abuse or bad living conditions are very hands on. Also the realization, that the body is a self deprecating machine, adapting to all circumstances.
My brother, when he attended his anatomy classes, told me the med students were very playful and joked all the time. A coping mechanism, perhaps? I think it's understandable, but respectful they were not.
For example, they called one of the corpses "blondie"... and she was headless. Let that one sink in.
I participated in a dissection (ex med tech in the Canadian Forces) and the impression that I got is that the room was filled with respect, with everyone being careful to keep the dignity of the cadavers intact at all time.
If you want to listen to the dark/shady side of the body broker business check out this swindled podcast. These dudes were chopping up bodies and storing parts in buckets, warm coolers, you name it.
Many medical students have their cadaver stories that have similar intrusive thoughts.
Some of those thoughts were shared out loud and definitely come off as ignorant due to the curiosity of the writer.
There's a book I read recently "When Breath Becomes Air" that talks about this rite of passage and the "respect" for mortality that isn't always shared by first year med students.
Many universities, at least in Europe, allow you to sign up to individual modules/exams. This is usually used by people who want to get ahead and study stuff before they actually sign up to a degree, but anyone can do it. At that point, the author would have been a student of that class like any other.
They don't seem to be doing this to pursue anything other than personal curiosity. And fairly light-hearted curiosity at that -- the tone of the article, to me, sounds more like, "Ooh, nerves are neat!" than someone trying to build a body of knowledge for a larger purpose.
I'm not going to go so far to say that only med students should have access to cadavers... but this article does feel like a rando just cutting someone up for fun, and that feels a bit off to me.
I totally understand how you feel, but I think I disagree. After I'm dead, my body is of no use to me. I'm gone. Like Elvis, I will have "left the building". I'm not an ancient Egyptian and so I neither believe in the afterlife nor in my body being of use to me there. And bodies are definitely a boon to science and medicine; they help the living! What can be more uplifting than that?
However, if the body of a loved one who has passed away were to be treated without respect, it would upset me a lot.
So interesting, because I had the opposite response. Sure if I donate my body to "science" and it's critical in some sort of medical discovery that would be great, but reading the OP and seeing the author's fascination, learning, and engagement with the cadaver I thought, "Gosh, what a gift!"
I'd certainly be very happy knowing that my body brought such an experience to another individual, I certainly won't be using my body anymore at that point.
I wonder if, when signing up for donation, you can specify what kinds of "science" or interactions you prefer your body to be used for after dying.
I'm on the list to donate my body. Perhaps a medical student will gain just a little more insight or skill by practicing a technique on my body, and perhaps that will help them save or help a patient or two in the future. I hope so.
The thornier issue, having discussed my wishes with my family, is how it will affect them after I go.
Exactly. I always understood you could allow your remains to be used for organ donation or for science. Not for some entertainment before Friday drinks. May be no worse than the way some med students treat donated bodies, but that doesn't make it any better.
Interesting. I did not take the author’s tone in a disrespectful way. It wasn’t solemn, but it wasn’t flippant. It appeared they had a genuine desire to learn about the body. That seems just as noble as a med student who isn’t really interested in medicine beyond a job that makes money and their parents happy.
If this sort of thing interests you and you're in the UK, there's a show in the next couple of weeks called My Dead Body where a woman narrates her own dissection (through recordings and ML-based voice recreation): https://www.channel4.com/press/news/channel-4-announces-movi... .. apparently the woman was the first (identifiable) person in the UK to donate their body for "public display".
Two observations I've heard from a young relative who has done cadaver dissection at scale, and is qualified to teach the subject in Med. School:
- "You want a facility with good ventilation. Doesn't take an M.D. to understand that breathing the vapors from embalming fluids, intestine contents, etc. is bad."
Honestly, from my experiences in medical school, cadavers smell strongly like formaldehyde, and all the tissues are brown, atrophied, and hard to distinguish. I remember realizing my understanding of anatomy (at least abdominal) increased way more from watching surgery on healthy tissue than an entire year of clinical anatomy courses...
This sort of topic does not interest me, but I clicked, and to my surprise I gulped the article. This is one of the most interesting posts I've read on HN, ever. Awesome writeup, I love the POV of a non-expert in the field!
I've been in medical schools where there were corpses and students all over the large hall. My first thought was wow each of these people had dreams, personalities and a soul. They were somebody. It gave me some comfort that the students were taught to respect the bodies and treat them with dignity. I wonder if that's all medical school or only this one because it was catholic.
It seems OP doesn't care about this?
Anyway, that's when I realized I could never be in that profession. I would have to become cold to it and I probably couldn't.
> If you exercise, we’ll know. Their insides just look different.
I've seen some video footage of minimally invasive operations (during a dies academicus lecture) and OMG fat was just so ugly. I know it is a natural part of us but when I saw that footage I promised myself to do more sports.
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Local laws dictated that all bullet fragments be removed, and since it was a low-caliber bullet the man had fired into his head, it mostly bounced around in there. Originally, they had drilled a discreet hole and were trying to get everything out that way, but eventually had to do the full rectangle, with a Stryker autopsy saw.
Suffice to say that I do not have my father's squeamishness.
(TY for sharing your story btw, thought the aside was interesting enough to tangent on)
Surely a med student needs to overcome that though? Even going into say.. radiology, it seems bound to happen from time to time, isn't that just really inconvenient for everyone, embarrassing even for the doctor (by then) himself?
I think that the author is not an individual with such an interest was quite clear from the tone taken on this piece - most discussions involving cadavers are quite respectful of the fact that they are working on the mortal remains of a person; for some reason the way this piece was written felt almost disrespectful.
Not that I know first-hand, but that's not the impression I got from the med students when I was at uni.
People find all sorts of odd ways to cope with their own mortality, and getting reminded of it tends to bring those to the fore.
I would hope that tales of inappropriate jokes of posing with body parts are relegated to a bygone era.
Fwiw I would have no issue donating my body to my institution for dissection. I certainly benefited from the donation. Some notable memories:
- The brittleness and crunchiness of an atherosclerotic artery compared to the pliable rubber hose of a healthy artery
- How incredibly soft lungs are -- like a tempur-pedic pillow. Unless the donor had been a smoker. Then the lungs were hard and black-spotted like a pumice stone.
- The muscular atrophy of old age. There were some donors whose abdominal muscles were as thin as paper.
- Holding a donors brain in one's hand (it's smaller than one would expect). In the words of a lab partner, "I can't believe we are holding everything that made this person a person, all their personality, everything."
Meanwhile, pathology is such a interesting science. Especially the quite visual signs of self inflicted decay due to substance abuse or bad living conditions are very hands on. Also the realization, that the body is a self deprecating machine, adapting to all circumstances.
Great german book on famous dead people and the source of there demise: https://www.amazon.de/Woran-sie-wirklich-starben-Pers%C3%B6n...
For example, they called one of the corpses "blondie"... and she was headless. Let that one sink in.
It’s quite a listen!
https://swindledpodcast.com/podcast/84-the-body-broker/
Some of those thoughts were shared out loud and definitely come off as ignorant due to the curiosity of the writer.
There's a book I read recently "When Breath Becomes Air" that talks about this rite of passage and the "respect" for mortality that isn't always shared by first year med students.
I'm not going to go so far to say that only med students should have access to cadavers... but this article does feel like a rando just cutting someone up for fun, and that feels a bit off to me.
However, if the body of a loved one who has passed away were to be treated without respect, it would upset me a lot.
I'd certainly be very happy knowing that my body brought such an experience to another individual, I certainly won't be using my body anymore at that point.
I wonder if, when signing up for donation, you can specify what kinds of "science" or interactions you prefer your body to be used for after dying.
[1] https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/french-academic-charged-over-mas...
The thornier issue, having discussed my wishes with my family, is how it will affect them after I go.
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- "You want a facility with good ventilation. Doesn't take an M.D. to understand that breathing the vapors from embalming fluids, intestine contents, etc. is bad."
- "Once you get the head off, the rest is easy."
It seems OP doesn't care about this?
Anyway, that's when I realized I could never be in that profession. I would have to become cold to it and I probably couldn't.
>"Hey, everybody, everybody gonna have a good time tonight
Just shakin' the soles of your feet
Everybody, everybody gonna have a good time tonight
That's the only soul you'll ever meet..."
<https://www.letras.com/queen/86774/
Where in the post did you see a lack of dignity? To me, it didn't seem disrespectful.
I've seen some video footage of minimally invasive operations (during a dies academicus lecture) and OMG fat was just so ugly. I know it is a natural part of us but when I saw that footage I promised myself to do more sports.
Or IDK what they were referring to.