One of the amazing things about medicine is that you get this access to people only unique to the profession. Talking to people, being able to ask them personal questions about their health and lifestyle (for legitimate reasons of course), and exploring the inside out (literally) of real human bodies- its not a just a science.

Dissection was not something we were just thrown into with no idea what we were getting ourselves into, we were told repeatedly that they involved people who had given consent for medical students to use their bodies after they died, and we were to treat the bodies with as much respect as possible. In some literature they gave us to read, it was described as a ritual much like the initiation ritual into a tribe that is apart from the lay tribe, that it is "a symbol of the student's separation from one tribe and entry into another... Dissection breaks a fundamental taboo of the lay tribe. To cut someone else's body one is either a criminal or a doctor- it is not normative lay tribe behaviour."
That aside, I went into the class with no expectations really, I just thought it would be an interesting way to learn anatomy. (Which is the whole point of dissection, by the way.)

There was about 7 people to one cadaver, and we all gathered around it, looking at the blue opaque PVC sheet that covered the body while the professor went through the introductory stuff, what instruments to use and stuff. Then it was time to take off the blue sheet- and reveal the body. I got quite a shock because firstly, the head was supposed to be wrapped up and covered in plastic or something, and secondly, the body was supposed to be lying face up. The cadever was already dissected by probably the second years, so his (it was an old man) head was sliced with the insides removed (it is not as disgusting as it sounds) and he was lying face down. One of the demonstrators came over, and being one of the nearest to the body I was told to help turn it around so that it was lying face up. I grabbed his arms, and on three we turned it over. His arms, the whole body really, was rock hard and rubbery because of the formaldehyde, and in a way that was good because it didn't seem so.. alive.

His face was also exposed unlike the other cadevers, and I stared at it for a long time, at his crooked nose, at his facial hair and what used to hold his eyes. I wondered for just awhile how he died, but I quickly got over it- we had things to do, muscles and structures to find, so it wasn't like I was emotional or anything like that. In fact it was quite the opposite, really- when you treat it as an anatomy lesson.

We took turns slicing away the flesh and fat around the chest area- it was dissected previously so we could find the major muscles pretty quickly. The demonstrator came over, and explained to us quite a large chunk of anatomy involving the names of alot of bones and muscles which I don't really remember now. Then the scalpel was passed to me and I was supposed to look for the intercostal muscles so we could see the direction of the muscle fibres. I made an incision and was surprised at how easily the scalpel sliced through the flesh.. and pretty soon I cut out a chunk of external intercostal muscle from the chest area.

The rest of the class we spent looking for various nerves and structures, we were new to this so we just cut whatever seemed like the best place to look for it- hit or miss, really. There was a hole through which you could put your finger through and feel the lung (we didn't want to cut till the lung to preserve what was above); it was spongy and he was probably a smoker.

After we found almost all of what we were looking for, I walked around the class to look the the cadevers of other groups- which was quite interesting, they came in all shapes and sizes, I tell you.

That was it then, and I left the class feeling quite enlightened. The worst thing about it was the smell- formaldehyde and whatever they used to enbalm the body- it penetrated through my gloves and even after washing my hands countless times the smell didn't go away. I got frustrated and gave up after a while.

The conclusion? It was a great learning experience and its probably quite a privilege cos apparently only a few medical schools do dissection still, and we were told that its the best way to learn about the human body, despite the plethora of computer software and anatomy atlases out there. And I agree.