The last few days have been pretty busy – I’ve started a teaching week, with lectures and anatomy classes every day from nine till five – it’s difficult having so much to take in, after what feels like an age of functioning on such a lower level. Tomorrow, I have my last anatomy practical class of medical school, and it feels like a momentous occasion in some ways – five years ago, I’d never seen a cadaver, let alone stuck on a glove and got my hands dirty. Now, I am able to identify parts and reel off lists of facts. I can orientate myself when I get to watch surgery. I see my body in a different way, beautiful, a product of amazing design and evolution. Sometimes, anatomy reminds me so strongly of God – if you google ‘arbor vitae’, you will see that inside the cerebellum (bit of the brain responsible for motion control), it looks like a leafy tree. It’s perfect. Could this really be due to random selection? I don’t think it could be. I think that the priviledge of seeing the inner workings of humans, and animals, is another incredible gift.
Tomorrow will be my last time for some time (I hope!) that I get to learn in such a special way. I am so grateful for all the people who donate their bodies so that I can learn to be a doctor. Each year, my medical school holds a service of thanksgiving for these heros, and every year I think it’s not enough. I try to treat cadavers as both gifts, and also as patients – with the respect they deserve. I’ve learnt as much from these deceased patients as I have from my living ones. I want so much to make sure that their sacrifice and choice went to good use, that I obtain the highest level of skill I can to be the best doctor I can be, to as many people as possible. A lot of people have helped me to learn.
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