Bodies

"The Cadaver Lab"
Those three words were enough to instill fear in my heart the past few years. I always thought I'd avoid those rooms, since none of my majors of choice had anything to do with Anatomy.
I should have known better.
This past Thursday, I saw a cadaver for the first time. More than one actually, up close and personal.
First off, the smell was awful. Not quite as bad as formaldehyde, but close. My groups studied the muscles of the arm first, so on our table were two disembodied arms. One guy kept saying they were making him hungry because they looked like steak (his words, not mine). Food was the farthest thing from my mind...although I thought they looked more like pulled pork.
The thing is, thinking of those arms as pieces of meat instead of arms that were once a part of a living, breathing human being was really the only way to deal with it. When we got to the cadavers themselves, I tried to keep that mindset. It felt so disrespectful, but I'm pretty sure vomiting would have been worse. Just the knowledge that these people had been alive and kicking just a few years ago, even while I've been a student here.
On a less morbid thought, it is pretty cool that we have a cadaver lab here. Apparently, most undergraduate programs and even some medical schools don't have a cadaver lab - and ours is the biggest undergraduate lab in the country.
I'm still not convinced I totally need this entire course for my major though...