Arriving in an aroma of preservative fumes I saw 6 tables covered in maroon sheets. Along my 4 other lab partners, we stood and listened to our instructor overview what we were going to be doing. Before I had time to digest all of the information, he lifted off the drape of one of the bodies... I thought I was ready for this, I worked in health care and prepped bodies for the morgue... I thought I was ready. The second he lifted the drape I was more shocked and started to feel anxious and worried. Repeatedly I kept telling myself that ... these people wanted to be here, the donated themselves for our education, and within just a few minutes me and one of my partners took a scalpel to the back of our cadaver. We exposed the back and observed the latissimus dorsi after sheering and sheering away the fascia around the muscles. This was more work than I had imagined. Little did I realize, we were just one the superficial layer of the back muscles. Time passed and we observed so many more structures like the thoraco-lumnar fascia and trapezius. One more layer deeper we discovered the rhomboid major and minor. Uncovering the serratus posterior superior we also uncovered the serratus posterior inferior and under that was the errector spinae. This errector spinae is divided into three sections, the illiocostalis, the longissimus and the spinalis. Along the spine I felt the facets of the vertebrae in addition to part of the pelvis, the illiac crest. Finally, the deepest muscle we uncovered today was the multificus. Apparently we were the only lab group that discovered this muscle today so our instructor brought everyone to our model to have a look. Overall, I would say that our first lab was very successful and I learned so many new muscles. The greatest thing about the cadaver lab is that I don't need to use flash cards to plain face memorize, I can rely on my memory of this amazing hands-on experience. I cannot wait for what else I will discover in this lab!
**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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