Cut and Scrape: The Dissection Diaries II

Before i begin the dissection of brain, let me fill in something i forgot to mention in the earlier posts.The "disarticulation" part! Dis-articulate... means undoing what was articulated. In Medicine, articulation means a joint of two bones - elbow joint, knee joint- where one bone comes in contact freely with another ("articulates"). So when u break their contact they disarticulate.(k?)

With this brief intro in mind, i wanted to say that after we finished with thigh, buttocks, knee we no more required the entire body. So, one fine day we were made to disarticulte the hip joint.. and quite literally! we had to clear (remove) all the fat, vessels, muscles, ligaments and whatevr tissue we encountered in the hip region and reach the bones, to the area where the thigh b articulates (comes in contact, joints) with the hip b anyway. So then we had to cut all the muscles, ligaments , and finally after an effort of two damn hours(and we noticed that only after a "yeah!, we did it!", we managed to free the lower limb from the main trunk. And, the next day we entered the dissection room, we were left with only the legs, deprived of the rest of the body, loooking pretty incomplete! Imagine coming to a room and seeing a pair of legs lying on the table, without the rest of the body, waiting to be "cut and scraped" upon!!! It was amusing though...!

Cut and Scrape: The Dissection Diaries I

(essentially, for the strong-hearted... not recommended for pregnant women and patients suffering from heart diseases, abdominal disorder, etc.)

These are some of my dissection stories. a Radio Mirchi(98.3 FM, bombay, India) RJ once, hence, christened me as "Dissection Dude"...!

To begin with... we started our cadaveric dissection from the Infex (short form for Inferior extremity which means lower limb/leg). The body we (a group of 10) got was a lady (nope, don't grin guys... wait till u hear more). She was old (abt 45) obese.. with one inch fat everywhere... at least; blackish, ugly, distorted eyes, (not a blonde or red-head guys, sorry to disappoint, but salt and peppered hairs!-meaning, black and white), naked (yeah naked, completely, but not with that sensual elegance women possess, or should possess, but with that dead emotionless face which makes it more horrible, if not nauseating). We were asked to take an incision (shallow cut) on the skin beginning from the beginning of thighs, almost encircling the genitals (female organs!) and then come down from the inner side of the thing, right below the knee and round the knee back to the outer side of the thigh, and reflect (open/lift) it to see - fat(!), that was the first time I, or any of us, ever saw fat, and it was all yellow, fatty (!), oily and pretty disorganised and disgusting. Believe me, two people from my table ('table' is the group of 10 people assigned to one body kept on a table!) actually started dieting, thinking, that if they got dissected, they wont want to be frowned upon as we were on her... FYI, the name of the lady was Mrs. Patvardhan(put-rhymes with shut, vur-rymes with fur, dhun-rhymes with shun)!

We, then, proceeded with our fat-removing project, while most other tables with looking at nerves and blood vessels, we were still coping with fat-removal and its smell! Finally, I felt something... its hard, its brownish, and it doesn't feel all jelly and goo-ey! I shouted "Sir!, look i found a lymph-node" and grinned. he grinned back. it took me a second to realise that his grin was more of a scorn that one makes at a child who mistakes a new species of animal for an entirely new animal and is amazed! "Sudeep, it's a muscle" I couldn't figure out whether i should be disappointed by a guess gone terribly wrong, or that be excited about seeing a live(or dead?) muscle! A millisecond later, i was, away from my dilemma, watching the muscle, scraping the fat over it, and clearing it, and visualising the entire extent of it. I, and all of us, saw the muscles that are seen so prominently in the thighs of footballers, below the back of the knee, how the blood vessels unite and divide, how each muscle(or joint) has usually a dual blood supply just in case one gets obliterated! then we also saw how the nerves in the legs go, divide, supply muscles and joints, and how all the muscles are neatly arranged, one below the other, how simply tissues go and do great works like running, jumping, and various other tasks that we rarely notice...

Survive a boring lecture

I can state with certainty that every student has come across a painful phenomenon of a boring lecture where u r so fed up in class that all u can do is fall asleep. Here r a few things u cud do to survive a boring lecture:

1.RAISE your hand to answer when the teacher asks questions in class. When she asks u to answer, point out to someone else and say "He knows!". Point to some new everyday.

2.OFFER to take the roll-call and stop at each name to talk to the person for a while. "Sandra, hey, I hope your aunt is better. I heard she has a fall in the bathroom last night."

3.GET UP from your seat and start an argument with the person across the room because he is in your seat. You are not comfortable in any other seat as u have a rather sensitive back.

4.CONTEST everything the prof says and supply undeniable scientific evidence that u r correct. You have to be correct since your father, uncle, grand-father and great-grand-father were all married to great scientists.

5.EXPRESS concern every time your teacher mispronounces or makes a mistake and correct him.

6.CONVINCE everyone in your row to get up and sit down when your prof mentions a particular word like "so" or "basically" or "thus"

7.READ your book and share the event with everyone in the class from time to time. "No Beth, how can u die. NO!"

8.RECORD the college bell and play it every 15 mins.

9.USE a blow-horn if u want to ask a question.

10.ANNOY your professor by faking nature calls. Run out every now and then. You will piss the shit out of him!

So here u go, a few (albeit daring) ways to make those boring lectures a lot more interesting. Self-study! You don't have to listen to someone's long-winded baloney especially if he doesn't have a gun to your head, eh?

--- by snehlata anthappan, published in JLT

Smart Teachers

Comments made by teachers on their students' report cards:
1. Since my last report, your child has hit rock-bottom and has started to dig.

2. Your child is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

3. Your son sets low personal standards, and consistently fails to achieve them

4. When your daughter's IQ reaches 50, she should sell

5. If this student were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.

6. It's impossible to believe that the sperm that created this child beat out 1,000,000 others

7. The wheel is turning but the hamster's dead