Special to The Washington Post
It’s a reasonable enough question. What amazed me was how often people
asked it. "What," they would ask, "what is it like to do that to
a dead body?"
It took me some time to sort out how I really did feel during those first
weeks of anatomy class as I explored - by scalpel, by wrench and by saw - a
human body, "my" specimen, my" cadaver.
Every year the Georgetown University Medical Center invites the family
members of those whose bodies have been dissected to a memorial service. It was
not until I attended this funeral of sorts that I could answer the "what
is it like" question satisfactorily for myself.
There I was, perhaps the only Jew in that Catholic chapel, surrounded by
people making the sign of the cross, kneeling, singing hymns. I had come to pay
my respects to a courageous woman. A woman who until recently had filled my
thoughts almost every waking moment. My cadaver.
I never knew her name. That's always the policy in medical school. I
looked around the room, at all the relatives of those who had donated their
bodies to Georgetown. Is "my" family here? I wished they were wearing
name tags, identifying them as Table 21 or 92-year-old White Female."
Could the teary-eyed older gentleman in the far corner be her husband?
Could the woman in the blue dress be her daughter? Is there really a
resemblance there? Maybe the nose? The fair skin? The blue eyes? Could that be
her son? If so, then I could say I had
known their mother intimately. I knew, for example, that she had undergone a
hysterectomy. But that could mean she had left no progeny. So I’d only be guessing.
Medical School, Second Day: my lab partners and I are nervous, busying
ourselves with introductions, flipping through fresh notebooks, pretty much
avoiding what – or rather, who – is spread out over there, enclosed in a brown
bag on the cold steel of Table 21. A sheet of paper taped to the door reads:
Table 21. Sex: Female. Age: 92. Cause of Death: Congestive Heart Failure.
As we undrape our subject’s trunk, we do it earnestly, still infused with
the previous day’s lecture about conducting ourselves with appreciation and
respect for the person on the table.
It is slow going, days and then weeks of minute examination, as we
explore the human miracle layer by layer, organ by organ, system by system. And
no, it is not troubling, because I know she feels no pain. We only expose the
parts we are working on that day. Unexplored areas remain hidden under the
plastic. It is hard to think of her as a real person.
And then we reach her hands. My lab partners ask me to hold her hand
steady while they carry out the dissection. For the first time, her hand in
mine, she seems real to me, like someone who has lived, who has caressed loved
ones, who has, quite simply, held hands with others.
Her fingernails still have a remnant of pink polish on them. Hands fine
yet strong, well preserved for a 92-year-old. Was she a concert pianist?
Probably not, not with those nails. Manual work? No again. Her fingers are too
delicate for that.
As the weeks pass, she
gives me some truly wondrous moments.
My first glimpse of a human heart. The day that I hold her brain gently
in my hands, as gently as I held my son the day I gave birth to him. This was
where her thoughts resided. Her memories. Her dreams. I am memorizing her
anatomy, inch by inch, because that is what the exam will cover, but I am also
preoccupied. Who was she? What did she do with her life? Did she feel blessed, or cursed to live so
long?
Somewhere along the line I must have concluded that the answer would be
in her face, the last part of the body we would examine. A few times already I
have let my hand wander lightly over the plastic that covers her head, trying
to read her features with my fingers, learning little. But when the day arrives
to uncover her head and neck, I am hesitant. I have been imagining her for so
long, but now, as we prepare to push back the plastic, I understand why our
teachers saved this moment for last. The face makes the body a person. The face
inspires feelings, feelings that would have made the past three months so much
more difficult. And I wonder, what if this is a face I don't like what if it's
ugly or mean or dumb?
The plastic comes off, and there she is. Number 21. Our tour guide to the
wonders of the body. Her eyes are open, with a straight-ahead stare. I hadn't
expected that and it is unnerving. Her expression is pained. That, too, is
upsetting. What also strikes me is her coloring. Her skin is fair-I knew that
already. But her eyes-they are a light, clear, piercing blue. Just like mine.
And my skin is fair She could be my grandmother. No, she could be me, if I live
as long as she did.
Did she fight death? Did she die alone? Or was she surrounded by love? I
don't have time to imagine her life. My anatomy exam is a week away and I must
go back to understanding her as nerve and muscle and bone.
But I do gain one firm insight into her life. At the end of the course we
are told to put her remains into a special box labeled "To Be Returned to
the Family" So at least she had someone, people who wanted her back. My
lab partners and I feel pleased about that since the remains of most of the other cadavers go into
another box for a communal
interment.
Perhaps her family was among
those praying and singing in the Georgetown chapel. Perhaps not. As I tried to
keep up with the hymns, I decided what I would have said had I met them, that
their aunt, or mother or grandmother or great-grandmother had just begun a new
life deep in that part of my brain that
is going to make me a doctor.
When I am finally practicing, when I see a patient, probe
for pain, mend a bone, birth a baby - in all of it, it will be that old woman
courageous enough to leave her body to science, who will serve as my internal
reference book. My journey with her was so intimate, so illuminating, so
elemental that she will always stand as my idea if of what human beings are
made of.
Ranit Mishori, who lives in
Northwest Washington, is in her second year of medical school
Letters in response to the Past Life
of My Cadaver
I was moved to tears by "The Past Life of My Cadaver"
[Lifeline, December 7]. What an eloquent, sensitive, caring tribute to a
woman's life.
Both of my children were born at Georgetown, and the interns and
residents who attended the births showed an equal respect for me and my newly
born children as the author did for her cadaver. Brava to her and kudos to
Georgetown for instilling in medical students a sense of respect and love for
the patients they will serve.
---------------------------------
I've always been proud that my parents donated their bodies to a
university medical school. I, too, plan to donate my body. In fact, I've had
the donor form from Georgetown University Medical Center on my desk for over a
year, but for some reason I've procrastinated in submitting it.
Perhaps it's because I'd heard that thoughtless, disrespectful medical
students often laugh and make fun of their cadavers. I suspect that, deep down,
that bothered me more than I realized.
Now, thanks to your story, I better understand the discreet and
respectful process of studying the body. It also gives me hope that my body
shall be studied--and be helpful to--someone as sensitive as the author. That
is a comforting thought. I shall send in that form very soon.