Our Silent Teachers

I am officially into classes in medical school.  Today we had our first session of gross anatomy and met our cadavers, our "donors".  Our anatomy teacher described our donors as our "silent teachers."  It's so true.  They are teaching us anatomy in a way that would not be possible without them. 

We entered the anatomy lab to a huge room with about 50 body bags.  I have worked with cadavers before, so I'm used to the smell and the experience of working with someone who has passed on. 
Most of the students haven't.  I waited as the rest of my group arrived and we introduced ourselves to each other.  When we were ready, I opened the bag and we officially met our first patient.  We had a worksheet to fill out starting with looking only at the face and determining the gender.  When everyone had their guess we examined the rest of the body.  I was wrong about the gender.  We went through several other questions to get to know the person who so graciously donated her body to us.

I was busy focusing on our donor.  She looked like she could wake up at any moment. Then I looked up and looked around the room.  When I had worked with cadavers before, they were already fully dissected.  This was the first time that I had seen them untouched, as though they were being prepared for a funeral.  Looking around I saw hundreds of people, but those that were laying down were not with us anymore.  It hit me, the gravity of the lives that were lost.  Their souls were not with us.  I was also overwhelmed with a feeling of awe and thankfulness that all of these people were willing to donate their most precious gift to us after leaving life. 

Later tonight I was with my in-laws and they asked about my donor.  I was, of course, vague as I will be here.  They kept making jokes. I know this is the natural response.  It is an odd thing to be working with someone's dead body and something that only few of us get to experience.  People are uncomfortable by the idea and so the usual reaction is to make jokes about it.  Don't get me wrong, there were some funny ones, but I felt uneasy about it.  They hadn't been there and seen all of the donors lying on the tables seemingly sleeping.  They weren't standing right next to someone who loved science so much that they donated their body for its advancement.  They weren't looking at someone who had passed on lying naked on a table with bright lights and hundreds of students staring at him. 

We've spent the first part of school discussing the history of medicine and ethics.  It has been a really hard few weeks.  They have been asking us deep questions and making us search deep inside ourselves to find answers to questions that have no right or wrong answers.  We've been asked questions about healthcare and ACA and what we think about it.  We've been asked about end of life care and when to say that there's nothing more we can do for a patient.  We've been asked about our ethics and morals and how we will apply those to our new career.  The list goes on.  I've been soul-searching everyday.  I hope that the other students have done the same.  I'm older than most of the students in my class by 7 years.  I wonder how much they are getting out of all that we have done.

Hello!  I'm Jennifer, a 29-year-old mezzo-soprano.  I've been singing professionally and teaching voice and piano lessons for the past six years.  A couple of years ago I had a quarter-life-crisis and decided to completely change career paths and go into medical school.  So I had to go back to undergraduate classes and take chemistry, evil physics, and the dreaded organic chemistry.  I took the MCAT once, didn't do too well, took it a year later and improved my score by six points, getting me into a top medical school in the Southeast.  I start two weeks from today.

So, in the past three months I have changed my religion, changed my marital status and thus my name, changed homes, changed careers, and my parents' divorce will be finalized any day now after thirty-two years of marriage.  For someone who doesn't deal well with change, this is a lot.  There are days when I'm completely overwhelmed by it all, but you just have to keep chugging along. I mentioned all of this to a therapist friend of mine who told me that I am under a lot of stress and I will most likely get very sick over the next year as I deal with all of these changes.  Well let's hope not! 

I was inspired to start this blog by my hairdresser, who also happens to be a good friend.  I am in a unique situation.  First of all, I'm an older student in medical school.  They call us "non-traditional."  Second, I made a major leap going from an arts field into a science field.  My plan is to discuss the transitions I have made recently over the next two weeks and then walk my readers through the first year of medical school and probably beyond.  I have had so many people ask me why I changed fields. I have had people contemplating doing the same thing and looking for guidance. I have no idea what to expect from med school, so maybe I can help people considering it make a decision and survive the first year. I am writing for the sake of writing and hopefully I can give a little insight into the insanity of med school.  I can't believe I start in only two weeks!