This week we are moving inferior down the torso and into the center of the GI tract. Now...I have worked in an ICU, smelt C-diff, smelt GI bleeds, and drained abscesses, but nothing prepared me for what one of the cadavers smelled like. Everyone was prepping for the stench of this lab with masks and Vicks (some even wore two masks!) I felt that I was well seasoned in this area of "stinky-ness" and toughed it out without a mask. I do not regret it because that will be a smell I remember for the rest of time (and it was only for a short period of having to deal with it). Apparently, the embalming was not successfully completed on one of the cadavers, leaving him to be more life-like that expected. Due to this, his gut smelled like a combination of formalin, bowel, probably bile, and some other indiscernible smells. Our instructor seemed to be most concerned with possible molding of his intestines and other organs in the viscera...so he instructed a group of students to bag up the organs in a bag. Aside from this, the smell was not as bad as those things that I listed from my health care experience. Our cadaver had a relatively healthy GI tract with the gallbladder and appendix removed (this threw us off a bit because we kept looking for organs that weren't there =p). Nevertheless, all the organs were very easily identifiable--needless to say, for an elderly patient, I was impressed. The uterus and ovaries had little to no cysts on them and were almost textbook perfect (for a post-menopausal patient). The most frustrating part of this whole lab was not even removing the intestines or clearing away the omenta from the organs, but it was trying to learn and identify all the nerves, arteries and veins. In the lab we have a podium-like textbook stand for our anatomy atlases and as much as we were flipping through the pages. I felt like I was getting so confused with the names of everything and needed to review a bit more before memorizing the structures in "real-death." I usually study prior to lab in order to make sure I can recognize and get the most out of lab as possible, but this time, there was too much material. Unlike last lab, where I was super enthused to get down and dirty with the heart, I do not have the same love for GI, which makes learning it that much harder. Next week we have a week off and I will most definitely be studying all of this anatomy and maybe even setting foot into the cadaver lab outside of class.
**As many of you can tell, I graduated AMC's program in May of 2017. Current plan is to start a new blog related to my Fellowship after PA school. Stay tuned for the link and updates :)**
Lindsey the
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