The First Cut

With the pungent odor of formaldahyde and alcohol preservative permeating the room, we watched as the instructor demonstrated how to make the long inscission midline, over the spine, from the base of the back, between the iliac crests, to the prominent spinous process of cervical vertebrae number seven. Now it was our turn.
We unwrapped the cadaver, which was very difficult becasue of the dead weight, and turned him onto his back to reveal his spine. With the cold, hard, unforgiving scalpel set, I made the long slow cut into this unknown persons back.
The scapel sliced effortlessley through the skin as I slowly made my way up the spine letting the formalin preservative ooze copiously from the inscission. The preservative which pervaded my being, burning my throat and eyes and making me wonder if I could endure. Then as one previous student interjected, "You had better get used to it."
Then the process began of slowly pealing back the skin and fascia while being careful to not cut into the muscles. Right away I could notice the striations and muscular bundles of the latissimus dorsi and the trapezius muscles--muscles I have seen so many times in books and even on cadavers in my undergraduate courses, but never form my own doing, on my own cadaver. It is somewhat eerie to cut into a dead human being but at the same time exhilarating. What will I find, what will I discover, what will I learn. The detective in me jumped to the surface. At times I felt like Jack Klugman in Quincy. You know, the coroner who was always able to solve the murders after dissecting a cadaver. I wondered. . . this is just the beginning of my journey to become a physician. . . where will I go, what will I do, who will I help, who will I save, who will I kill. (Killing is not intentional just part of the experience)
That was part of my day and I wanted to share it with all of you and some of my thoughts and feelings. I could write a novel from just the first day but then I would never accomplish what I came here to do.