My First Patient

So day 2 became the most surprising yet. We had our intro to anatomy and dissection today (among a few other classes). I'm feeling pretty confident that I will enjoy anatomy and score well enough to distribute my stress among the other classes that I have this quarter. The anatomy intro was pretty straight forward and was mainly a syllabus breakdown. The Dissection intro was what caught me off guard.

It started as a brief history of human and animal dissection. Human dissection has been a wild ride over the past 500 years (pretty much 1000 years). The history was interesting and I doodled the whole time so I felt like I was back in school again. Then things took a different direction. A professor stood up and gave a lecture on the emotional and spiritual side of human dissection for the purpose of medical training. He had an awesome European accent (possibly German) and he had my attention immediately.

I anticipated the lecture on respecting the bodies of the people that donated themselves for our educational purposes. It is a very necessary and helpful discussion that I have has before while in human anatomy in my undergrad. So I wasn't expecting anything too different. I could not have been more wrong.

He began very straight forward about the privilege of having the cadavers as students and how being respectful of them was so important. He then described how the cadaver is, in a special way, our first patient. We owe the person's body all of the respect, care, and attention that we would want to give all of our future patients. He read a poem written by a medical student that described the emotional and intellectual battle that goes on as a med student learns from the cadaver. How one minute you are making the cold and scientific assessments of the body and its condition, but then consider the person's story. Did she have a family? What was his legacy?

My doodling had stopped completely by then. He had me. He delivered the next part so perfectly that it changed me forever. I was contemplating how great it is to think of the cadaver as your first patient when the professor added something more than just "great". To show us what the cadavers really should mean to us, he read a card that was sent to our school. It was sent by the family of one of the people that had donated their body to the students here. The card was a 3x5 card with short messages from a spouse, children, grandchildren and friends. "Please take good care of my blue-eyed soul mate", "It is our hope that one of your students can find a cure to that cruel disease: cancer", "We love you for the profession that you have chosen", "Please take care of my grandpa".

I couldn't look at the card after he began to read. I tried desperately to return to the safety of my doodling. I could hear tell-tale sniffs all around me. I fought harder than I have in a long time to not get choked up. It was in that moment that the cadaver that I was going to be dissecting over the next six months became a person who was giving me a selfless gift. Every person that I treat will owe the donor of that cadaver for helping me, a brand new student doctor, learn about the amazing human body.

The professor also included a thought from a movie that was made decades ago, starring Carey Grant. He played a doctor who was followed around by the spirit of his cadaver from medical school. While he treated his patients, the spirit would remind him of things he had learned from the body. I pondered that idea.

The students were all sent to the anatomy lab to then meet our cadaver. Four people to a cadaver. We walked across the campus to the building and climbed the stairs. It was a much more reserved crowd. Not solemn but reserved. I found my designated table and body. Another member of my team and I unzipped the bag and unveiled our first patient. Out of respect for my first and perhaps my most important patient, I will not share further details about her. Before we covered her back up, my partner had stepped away for a moment and with foggy vision I thanked her for being the one that would teach me. For being the one that would make me a better doctor. For being my first patient.

Now, while nobody is watching, I can let a few of those tears loose. It was a deeply moving and powerfully spiritual thing for me. I touched her skin and pictured her, looking on from a better place, pleased that she will be giving us such a priceless gift. It will be an honor to learn from her. I will be eternally grateful to her. She is... my first and most special patient.