No Guts, No Glory

autopsy

5pm, Typical Tuesday:  One could see the Humble –Third- Semesters (yeah that’s how we identify students here in our beloved town) just getting out of Pathology lab (that’s where all the creepy human specimens are, yes)

Being one of the Humble- Third- Semesters it’s only fitting for me to mention my esteemed employers for the time: Laziness, Redundancy, Laziness. It was a full-time job. But I was one of those ever-so-zealous servants, you see. I had no qualms about toiling around for these great masters.

Anyway, so on this particular Typical Tuesday, after my break in path lab I decided to carry on with my lazing around and being redundant. But life had other plans.

Or rather, Death did.

5.30pm, That Very Typical Tuesday: My phone buzzed. Another one of them whatsapp group messages. Now, in my defense, I generally ignore these groups. But that day, very simply put, there were paranormal forces in play. So I found the screen staring back at me.

“Autopsy at 6pm.”

My undying loyalty to my hitherto masters suddenly stood on slippery ground. I comprehended the necessity to start witnessing autopsies soon. That comprehension found me in new light.

Literally, in new light. Under an *insert number here* watt bulb of the autopsy room (what? I’m a Med Student. I’m bad with numbers, okay?).

Ergo started my first autopsy experience.

Now, if you’re one of them very-excited-about-everything-fresher’s, are “dyyyyyyyiiiiiinnnng” to learn everything about the human brain and “just can’t wait to witness an autopsy”, then here’s the heads up:

Autopsies aren’t half as cool as they sound. Quite the opposite, quite literally.

Hot, humid and packed -I mean, PACKED- with students and staff and of course, the dead body. That’s the autopsy room for you. It is the perfect setting for fainting, or for feigning fainting. Because even the biggest-buffest-boy I know has fainted there. No jokes.

First came the photo session. Every position, every limb, every angle of the body was subjected to scrutiny by nonchalant handy-cams. Every scar was zoomed in on. Every orifice was measured. The face, obviously, bagged the most number of close ups.

(Oh and did I mention this particular dead body had his tongue sticking out of his mouth? Yeah, clichéd movie scene, no big deal, I know.)

 

I was starting to get into the groove. This didn’t seem so disturbing after all.

Once the staff was done making the corpse immortal in the film, incisions paraded in. Rather, one big incision from the chin to the pelvis. Every little organ buried inside the thoracic and abdominal cavity (chest and let’s just say, tummy, for you non-medicos) now popped out. But not before the entire table was smeared in blood, of course.

The staff wasted no time once the blood all drained away. Having ligated (= tied up) the two ends of the gut, they yanked out all the organs in one beautiful masterstroke. Following which, it was just the routine weighing, squeezing and slicing up of those tissues. Boring.

The body was now empty. Barring one thing.

The most beautiful part of a human being. The intricate intriguing enigma. The brain.

Well, that’s where the saw came in. I’d been wondering about it ever since I saw it standing in a corner. They sawed the unyielding skull open, and out emerged the brain.

The beauty of the moment almost paralleled that during a delivery :’)

Well. That was about it. Again a whole new round of weighing, squeezing and slicing up the brain. Routine, boring stuff. Oh and the rest of the brain was finally positioned inside the abdominal cavity before the big midline cut got sutured up.

Well. If you guys have born with me till now, you’d probably like to know how all of that^ led to a diagnosis.

Oh, don’t worry about it, we knew it was a case of insecticide poisoning before the autopsy even began.

So yeah, those of us who hadn’t fainted and hence ditched the room till now, could do so now. With attendance! (Probably the only thing the loss of which scares Manipal-ites)

Cool, you ask? (Applicable only to non- medicos and med school freshers :P)

Yeah. I suppose it was pretty cool.

I’ve changed a lot of things ever since I started boasting my KMC name tag.

I guess one thing remains: My definition of a Typical Tuesday.

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