Last week, I took the Anatomy Practical on the thorax and abdomen, a test for which we had to identify marked structures on the cadavers, and one which induced much stress.
However, during the practical, I was particularly struck by one display. I had seen the inferior epigastric artery before, but it had always been severed from its source. During the test, however, one cadaver displayed a beautiful dissection of the artery--I was delighted to see, for the first time, the artery clearly branching from the external iliac artery, then running between the rectus abdominis muscle and rectus sheath to nestle neatly within the lateral umbilical fold. Several other dissections were also very notable--such as the greater splanchnic nerve connecting to the celiac ganglion, the cystic duct running from the gallbladder.... The clarity of the dissections made the bodies beautiful, and was a testament to both God's awesome creativity and our professors' dissecting skills.
I found moments of delight amidst an intense exam. I know my classmates felt the same--I heard some discussing the beautifully dissected splanchnic nerve after the test. Even though we study laboriously in the cadaver lab, sometimes the beauty of the dissections does strike us, and we pause from our mad studies to praise it.
To me, such moments are like a welcome gulp of fresh air, before we are plunged again deep into the swirling torrents of material that is Anatomy class. I may miss Anatomy after all.
Edit: So that you guys don't think I am a super sappy nerd: There was another display on the Practical for which I could not make out the structure at all. I was plagued throughout half the test with the thought, "Just what the hell was that?" (It turned out to be an artery the professor said we normally would not see in dissections due to its smallness. In that cadaver, however, it was abnormally large. The prof's statement threw me off.)
No comments:
Post a Comment