The lab coats were neatly hung on the far wall of the Medical School's gross anatomy lab. The operating tools were put away almost two months ago - yet some first-year Medical students had some unfinished business.
On Friday, with a tinge of formaldehyde still lingering in the air, about 90 first-year medical students walked back into the now-empty dissection room to pay respects to people they never knew, but bodies they knew all too well.
It was a memorial service dedicated to the group of people who donated their bodies for study by Medical School students.
None of the students knew the people when they were alive, yet they felt a cadaver memorial was the culmination of a unique and almost eerie relationship.
"A service like this has to be different," said first-year Medical student Joe Jackson, who helped lead the service. "There's a connection between [the cadaver and me], the way I know my patient that no one else can know. The fact that my patient had kidney disease and I knew it, but she may not have - that's the way I know my patient."
All first-year Medical students are required to take MED 602, Gross Anatomy, a class that involves dissecting the entire human body.
Several students stressed that although the gross anatomy lab may be an emotionally draining experience, it mainly is due to the subject matter, not peer competitiveness. Teamwork is an integral part of the first year of Medical School, said first-year Medical student Alfa Dallo.
Thus the class as a whole decided to conduct a memorial service, said Randy Myers, first-year class president of the Medical School and memorial coordinator. Such services have been given intermittently since the early 1980s, said Cell Biology Prof. Barry Hinton.
On Friday, several students expressed their appreciation for the cadavers through poetry, music or song. Much like a traditional funeral, the students had to deal with the reality of death.
"Here it's a new transformation," said Richard Haines, director of Chaplaincy Services at the Hospital. "Through your knowledge it has been changed from a place of death and suffering to a place of new life and new hope and knowledge and wisdom."
At the end of last semester, Haines arranged for the bodies to be cremated.
Students set up the cadaver lab for the service by moving all the empty dissection tables to the opposite side of the room and lighting tea candles to set a somber mood. During the service, those present were invited to place a white carnation in a basket in the center of the room as a symbol of their gratitude.
Some of the students said they became attached to the cadavers, as they spent at least nine hours a week in lab.
"I spent more time with [my cadaver] than my boyfriend, said first-year Medical student Alexandra Nelson. "He was the man in my life."
And although their patients were deceased, some students said the memorial service gave them a chance to build a strong doctor-patient relationship.
"There's a need to respect all patients," said first-year Medical student Colleen Braun.
That may explain why students spoke of their cadavers on a first-name basis or used terms like "patient" and "friend." First-year Medical student Romesh Wijesooriya even thought of his cadaver as his first patient.
"We had fun," Nelson said. "I mean, Herbert was ours. He was like a friend. Any one who came to visit me, I was always saying, 'We've gotta see Herbert.'"
By dissecting the human body, Dallo said he realized how life-changing such an experience could be.
"You're dealing with something you've never dealt with," he said. "The fact that you made it through it [means] you can make it through anything"
Read More
MLK III to focus on youth participation in politics as professor of practice
By Ford McCracken | 12 hours agoRestrictive voting laws are only one problem with voting today, according to King — the other is voter apathy. King even called the level of voter participation in U.S. elections “abysmal.”
New School of Data Science building opens with remarks and ceremony
By Cecilia Mould | YesterdayThe four-story, 61,000 square-foot building includes four classrooms and two seminar rooms, as well as a two-story central hub for hosting events.
Democratic Futures Project fellow Félix Maradiaga announces campaign to end arbitrary detention
By Caroline Hagood | YesterdayA public website for the campaign launched Friday, which Maradiaga says is the first step towards raising awareness.
