Putting the GROSS in gross anatomy.

[lacomtesse]

This quarter I am taking a class that is disturbing and thoroughly unpleasant: Gross Anatomy.

Comments

[suededsilk]

Um...er...cut please? (Not that I wouldn't have clicked on it, mind you, but now that I've read it... please? :)

Ick though - I guess the title *is* accurate! Yeah, I can't see why a pharmaceutical scientist would need to be dealing with bodies. :P Hope you get through it all right!

[lacomtesse]

Whoops! All fixed. It sounds far grodier than it really is. But nevertheless. Sorry!

I'm just counting the quarter down by my Mondays. 3 down, 7 to go!

[sarahbellem]

Have you read "Stiff" by Mary Roach? It opens with a chapter on Gross Anatomy at UCSF. It's an amazing book, very funny, very illuminating, very touching... But then again, I came *this close* to being a forensic anthropologist and, um, dead things facinate me. ;)

[lacomtesse]

I have heard of Stiff, but have never gotten around to reading it. The reviews look great. The notions of body farms and the like are neat; I can definitely see the practical applications and they are excellent training tools. I suppose the thing that's bothering me the most is the fact that Gross Anatomy not an optional class, we're on the quarter system so it's super rushed, and everyone is trying to deal with this requirement by depersonalizing the bodies to the point of it bothering me.

From a detached standpoint, it's interesting to be able to flop someone's greater omentum around and trace their splanchnic nerves, but how that's going to help me design an effective highly active anti-retroviral regimen for a non-adherent patient in virologic failure is beyond me! :)

[girliegirl32786]

Ewwwwww. I can definitely see how that wouldnt be a pleasant class. Even though I loved science in high school, I refused to take anatomy because you had to dissect a cat. I just couldnt go that far.

[lacomtesse]

I did the cat in high school, and even that was hard on me. It's the smell that gets to me the most; far more that the lady we're dissecting.

[akasha_zuul]

Gosh that sounds really, really gross. I'm so sorry that they're making you do this! But I think she'd be happy to know that someone out there cared about her feelings, even after her death. . . you! I know that I'd sure find a lot of dignity in donating myself to science if I could know that even just one person felt the way that you did about it

[lacomtesse]

Thanks for your comment. It was very thought provoking

[mlsdesigns]

would you donate your body to science? now that you've been there?
i, and my mother and sister, work on the principle that we're dead, we won't care/know what happens, and all of us have donor cards, (when it comes to a funeral we've always said the others should do what THEY want, it won't be my funeral, it's for those i leave behind me.) i think that donating my body to science might be a good thing - even if you don't feel you're learning anything, i'm sure we'd all rather the surgeons had their first practice on someone they can't hurt :)
just my two pennyworth, but i agree, the title is incredibly apt!

[lacomtesse]

I don't think I would donate myself to science, after seeing what would happen to me. It's just too creepy. Although, I actually one-hundred percent agree with you about "when you're dead, you're dead"...it's not that I feel like we're desecrating this woman or anything, it's just so sad to think of who she was and if, as a little girl, she planned on being manhandled and picked apart for several years after death. I dunno. I totally see the value in it and admire people who do it, but I wish they'd use these bodies for students who want them!