Death and All His Friends

WOW. Yesterday was our first day working with the cadavers, and it was an experience unlike anything else. For about the first 10 seconds after the tanks opened, everyone just stood there mindblown and silent. I still find it incredible that a person would give up their body just so that we can use it as a learning tool for our future careers. It was an amazing experience; unfortunately due to legal restrictions I cannot go into any further detail on the cadavers other than to say that there were 17 of them.

The way the lab works is that we are broken up into groups of six, each group gets their own tank with cadaver. Within each tank group, we are divided into 3 teams of 2 people. Yesterday being the first lab, we were all there. However, from now on it will be much different. Two teams will be assigned to perform the day's dissection, while the third team gets the day off. However, prior to the next dissection, one of the two dissecting teams will be assigned to teach the third team everything that they learned that day. At the beginning of the next lab, the teams that did not dissect have to take a quiz over what they were taught by their fellow group members. Whatever grade that team makes is the same grade that the whole tank group gets. I think this is an excellent system, because it forces the dissecting teams to focus hard enough that they can teach the material to the other team, while the home team has to do their best to learn everything that they are taught, since the whole group's grade depends on them. Each lab a different team will get the day off, and a different team will be assigned to teach. It will rotate around all semester.

Today obviously could not compare to yesterday, and was rather boring for the most part. We had biochem all morning once again, with a different prof than before. We went over a lot of thermodynamics and acid/base reactions which I thought was strangely basic to be covering in med school. Didn't we learn this in Chem 101? In the afternoon we had a class in professionalism, followed by a guest speaker who was a colorectal surgeon (nice). The afternoon was spent moving all my shit into my new apartment, as I have been living in a temporary unit with some other guys. The move took most of the afternoon and now I am exhausted. I am excited, however, to finally be living on my own for the first time in my life. I feel it will be a great experience and the best thing that I could do in med school. Now I have to get studying for histology lab tomorrow, good night to all.