Gross Anatomy

I guess I should have expected it. I knew, after all, what a gross anatomy lab was for. Even if I hadn't grown up around doctors, I'd seen a very minor film called Gross Anatomy that starred Matthew Modine about medical students learning to respect the process of becoming doctors. So I probably shouldn't have been freaked out when I opened the door.

Shouldn't have been, but was anyway.

Cadavers.

Cadavers everywhere. Zipped into their heavy blue and gray bags, smelling of formaldehyde.

I was in the gross anatomy lab to take a photo of Kim Artounian, the young high schooler who won the Arizona Regional Brain Bee held on the Glendale Campus. She was there with Dr. Bucky Jones, the energetic assistant professor of anatomy with the friendly smile and sandpaper voice who was giving Kim a tour of the facilities.

Kim and Dr. Jones were chatting festively while I was standing there trying not to get too close to... well, anything. Oh, and trying to stay conscious. Fainting would not have been the most manly thing to do in that situation, particularly in front of a high school girl.

Let me explain. I think the impulse to donate one's body to science after passing away is incredibly noble. In fact, I marked "yes" on my organ donor option because... well, let's be frank, I'm not going to be using any of it anyway after I'm gone.

The problem is, from a visceral standpoint, cadavers and I don't get along. Without telling the whole story, we haven't gotten along since I went to my grandmother's funeral as a toddler and a well-meaning but frankly ill-conceived plan by a relative to desensitize me to her body in the coffin went awry.

You don't need confirmation from a member of the Midwestern University Clinical Psychology faculty to understand how that has affected me in the years since. Let's just say that I don't make a practice of going to funerals anymore. It's nothing personal, I tell my friends and family. It's just that once the undertaker gets hold of you, that's where my role ends.

Anyway, back to the present, where I was breathing through my mouth and trying to still my shaking hands in the middle of the gross anatomy lab (the number of cadavers, I was later told, was due to the fact that students were taking final exams the next day). Kim and Dr. Jones were oblivious to my plight; after all, for them this was a place of learning and discovery, not their own personal hell on earth. Gritting my teeth and reminding myself of the nobility and generosity of the cadavers and their families, I mentally punched myself in the teeth, told myself to man up, and put on quite possibly the least-convincing smile ever.

Through the blood rushing in my eardrums, I could hear Dr. Jones tell Kim, "Let's get some of these samples out." Samples? Huh?

BRAINS. Dr. Jones was pointing to containers with donated brain tissue. Apparently, the idea was for Kim and Dr. Jones to pose with a donor sample for the photos. You know, Brain Bee... brain tissue... a natural fit, right? Except that there was a complicating factor - this quivering pile of jelly wearing a Midwestern University lanyard and a stricken look on his doughy face.

Fortunately, in this case my weak constitution was backed up by policy - no donor samples if the photos are marked for outside publication. Both of my subjects were very disappointed, but I stood as firm as I could without locking my knees (I'm sure the anatomy lab floor was carefully scrubbed, but I wasn't fond of the notion of waking up on it).

I snapped three quick shots of a far more mundane nature (ignoring the advice that I "may have to back up next to one of the examination tables to get the right angle") and hightailed it outta there, leaving Dr. Jones and Kim to explore the lab unfettered by a seriously skittish third wheel.

I must say that I'm proud of Kim, though. She presented a far more professional mein than I did. I figure that if she is the future of healthcare, then we're all in good hands. She's the kind of student we covet at Midwestern University.

As for me, I'll stick to writing. And to pretty much any part of campus but the gross anatomy lab.

Kim Artounian (L), winner of the Arizona Regional Brain Bee, and Dr. Bucky Jones (R), Professor of Anatomy, pose for a picture in the one spot of the Sahuaro Hall Gross Anatomy lab that didn't give me the heebie-jeebies. Not pictured: Everything else.