The First Time

I’m a medical student, who is just learning how to sight blood and wouldn’t shiver (as others would say- stand the sight of blood).

Gross anatomy was a class I was looking forward to, not because I was excited but I wanted to know if I could stand the sight of a Cadaver.

No matter what course one is studying, as far as you are a medical student you’d have to experience series of Gross Lab.

Each time I go to the Gross lab for Osteology I take a deep breath at the door step, even when I know I’m going to see a skeleton and not a cadaver because the lab smells like the chemical used to embalm the cadavers I always look at the bones as if they were with flesh and begin to prepare my mind for the real thing.

The chemical used to embalm the Cadaver is so toxic that it makes my eye itch and watery, it dries up my nose and makes it difficult for me to talk fluently in the lab. The smell was quite repulsive, which made me wonder how I would react on my first day of gross lab when the covers are unwrapped from the cadavers, would I faint? Would my legs shake? Would I scream out loud?

Let’s get this straightened out for the record, I have never been interested in Surgery, but have always had a positive mind towards it.

Those questions as well as the feeling of uncertainty plagued me on the days leading to my first gross lab involving cadavers.

On the morning of the lab, I arrived very early for lab as usual. I was anxious with a mind prepared to learn, no matter what I see.

Upon entering the gross lab, it still hadn’t dawn on me that this is someone who could have being walking on the streets not too long ago. It wasn’t until we took the plastic wrap off, that I realized how real this experiment was going to be. He had nails, hair all over and big eyes that made him become alive to me.

I closed my eyes and turned around to face the wall, trying to gather courage to carry on. In the process, I began to mutter the words; I can do this, several times I opened my eyes and literally ran out of the lab, screaming I can’t do this.

Oh my! What a fast runner I am.

I thought I was facing the wall but alas it’s another Cadaver.