Yesterday was yet another cancelled day of school because of the extreme cold. Wind chill down to -45˚F! I looked forward to sleeping in, making an egg sandwich for breakfast, watching television for the first time since I was in California, and maybe doing a little bit of studying.
I awoke just before 11am (don't judge - I was catching up from having slept in the library the night before) by the little ding that my phone makes when it receives an email. I rubbed my eyes, got up, and walked across the room to look at that email. My pathology professor emailed saying that an opportunity to watch an autopsy in the afternoon just came up. I texted J that we won't be having our weekly FaceTime chat and hopped into the shower. I needed to leave in a half hour if I wanted to make it on time!
When I arrived at the hospital, the greeters directed us medical students to the basement. Of course the morgue is underground, I thought. We entered the morgue door and walked down a long hallway that doubled as storage for interesting findings in semi-opaque buckets of formaldehyde. The containers were just diaphanous enough to get an idea of what is inside of them - intestines, brains, hearts - but not completely transparent so as to remain respectful of the contents. I was enthralled more because of the this-will-make-a-good-story feeling than by actually being in the basement.
After donning plastic smocks and being herded into a corner of the examination room, the men rolled a gurney out of the refrigerator with a white body bag on it. They unzipped the bag and...
Out of respect for the patient and to be considerate of your delicate stomachs, I will not go into detail about the process. Let's just say that the three people performing the autopsy were the pathologist (an MD), a path assistant, and a man whose unofficial title is "eviscerator." Eviscerator travels to hospitals throughout the region to do his job. I felt a little queasy looking at the body because it was so "fresh," as those in the medical profession say. At least my cadaver was one more step removed from life by being embalmed.
When Eviscerator got to work, I started feeling less like this subject's friend and more like a doctor. We were going through the motions: skin, bone, then organs; thorax, abdomen, then pelvis. The family gave permission to autopsy anything except the head. Organs were weighed, inspected, and photographed before samples were taken for microscopic analysis. The microscope aspect takes a long time to prepare, as the tissues must be fixed, sectioned, and stained before analysis.
The worst part of it was the smell. If you can imagine, the entire gastrointestinal tract is filled with digesting food and bacteria that help catabolize it. Imagine what that digested food smells like when it exits the body, then imagine how bad it is when nearly 30 feet of it is exposed to the air. Yuck.
I was engrossed by the pathology. The lungs were abnormal, the spleen was abnormal, the kidneys had an uncommon anatomical variation, and the heart was beautifully normal. I will never grow tired of looking at the sacred organs that make life possible.
The subject was stitched up sans viscera, placed back into the body bag, and wheeled out as a worker started bleaching the stainless steel examination table. I left the hospital and headed straight to a restaurant for lunch.
Here's a handy Guide to Watching Your First Autopsy, if you're so inclined to prepare for one.
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