I don't exactly remember when did we have our first dissection session. But it was quite exciting for us. We were damn enthusiastic as well as a bit doubtful of whether we would be able to stand that feeling of cutting a dead body or not. The dissection was scheduled post-lunch and we all were advised to have a full-stomach meal in order to stand in the dissection hall for two hours together. Well, we all reached the dissection hall with all the required material. Since ours was the very first batch, we saw the cleanest possible dissection hall in a medical college. And thus we could not imagine what all was there to follow.
Finally, the first cadaver was being brought, then the second, the third and so on. Dark dead bodies preserved in formaline solution. All cadavers were being placed on the respective tables. I remembered the Almighty and touched my scalpel and forceps to my head as a sign of respect to the pretty instruments. Rubber gloves, scalpel in one hand and forceps in the other, it was a damn good feeling. Somebody somewhere deep inside me felt proud of being a medical student, rather a would-be doctor.
Our instructor showed us how to make an incision on the skin of the cadaver. As I saw the instructor's scalpel running over the dark wet skin, all my enthusiasm turned into smoke. I immediately retracted my hands and folded them at my back pretending nothing happened. The view of that first incision and what I exactly felt that time is still inside me. I was afraid how would I make a cut to someone's body. Further, I didn't want to make my scalpel and forceps dirty in order to avoid washing them. (I know it sounds silly, but yes, it was what I felt) But the instructor would not let us go like this. Out of the fifteen students standing around the dissection table, he had to choose poor me for the very first time. I cursed the moment in mind and hesitantly touched the head of scalpel with the skin of the upper back taking care not to spoil it much.
That day, I made only a few incisions and nothing else. But the next day had something worse for me. The instructor told me to demonstrate the previous day's method of incision to those who didn't come that day. I abused the damn previous day's absentees and held my instruments in hand, a bit more firm this time. Gradually I started making finer movements on the old man who measured around six feet long (not tall of course, the body was lying on the table) The next day still had something worse for me. The instructor taught us how to detach the back muscles from the spine and again it was poor me who had to do all this. But I thank that moment since it was the day I left all my fear and worries regarding dissection and attained a good command over anatomy.
The not-so-good part during dissection was the foul, pungent, tearing, throat-choking smell of formaline that would sometimes make us feel nauseated, specially at times lacking electricity. The worst thing happened when we were ordered to break the thoracic cage and take out the heart and the lungs. The instructor had given us full liberty to dissect out in our own way and enjoy as much as we could. Girls, definitely resorted to talking (they only start to talk when it comes to enjoying) and one by one left the table asking us to call them back when we were finished taking out the organs. As they left, it was only Hardik and me who were left with a bone-saw to cut the ribs out. We did a lot of hard work in cutting the ribs with immense patience. We were left with a single rib to be cut and so we decided not to cut, but to break it. Katack!! And it all happened at once. Both of us were sprayed with formaline everywhere on us and each tasted the bits of muscles that flew into our mouths...yuck!! I felt so screwed up that I didn't even bother to realise that also my hand was injured a lot by the broken bone.
That was quite bad a feeling of having human flesh in mouth (neither did that taste good) I felt much more pity for Hardik, since he never tasted non-veg being a Jain (though I was also not into eating a dead man!!)
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