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| This is the place. (I actually borrowed that quote from Brigham Young, though he was speaking of something very different than anatomy lab. Or was he?) |
I read an old blog allegedly written by me (in the interval in which it was written, only I had the password to this account, and I gravely doubt that a hacker would go to the trouble of gaining access to my leg just to make a single rather benign post) in which I mentioned that I would share how it is to cut through human flesh, albeit dead human flesh. I can see now that I never addressed that topic.
It's pretty gruesome, actually. The closest I'd ever come to it would have been cutting beef or chicken prior to cooking. Chickens are not all that similar to humans in an anatomical sense, however, so one could work as a KFC prepper (as in cutting the meat up long before it gets to the local stores) for many years and still have no clue as to what it is like to cut into a human. And one would be, if one is anything like me, perfectly happy to keep it that way. Cutting beef is a bit more similar except that the skin of a cow was removed long before it reached anyone's cutting board. If the hide were in place, it would be of a much tougher consistency than would human flesh be. Any attached vital organs would have long since disappeared as well.
I'm far from the reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer. The idea of controlling a knife as it descends through layers of human tissue in no way appeals to me. I refuse to allow my distaste for all things gory, however, stand in the way of attaining my career objectives. so I always used a scalpel as efficiently as possible in order to minimize my time spent in the anatomy lab.
One of my cohort mates suggested that people who have been involved in hunting mammals are slightly desensitized to the grossness of the whole process of cutting into tissue. This is likely true. It's not so true, however, that I would necessarily recommend that anyone who is much like me go out and buy a certified Dick Cheney hunting rifle and commence with shooting away at anything on four legs that walks by. If hunting is something that a prospective medical school candidate likes to do or does of necessity, more power to that person, and the person may have a slight edge on the rest of us when it comes to not hurling during one's initial stint in the anatomy lab.
In terms of the tactile-kinesthetic principles of functioning in an anatomy lab, however, there's as much dissimilarity between the mammals typically hunted and the ones one will dissect in anatomy lab as there is similarity. Think about it. Or don't, if you're squeamish and don't have to think about it.
