Anatomical dissection of cadever, lesson 1

it's been a long time since i last wrote here, and i wonder how many of you still watch this space?

just got back from my first disecction of a cadever, obviously we don't get fresh bodies, the cadevers we get are mostly old, homeless people that died in the hospital and have not been claimed. so basically for each group of 6 you get 1 cadever.

the first thing you notice is the smell, because obviously they had to fix the body with formalin to preserve it, and we'll be using the same body for 1 year, and we'll be sharing it with the year 2 students.

this is definitely one of the things i don't want to happen to my earthly remains when i finally quit this world, about 200 years from now (wishful thinking never hurt anyone).

so for the first session, we only had to remove the skin from the thoraic region.

this was done by making a very shallow (just cutting the superficial fascia) incision in a sagittal line stretching from the suprasternal notch above the manubrium to the xiphoid process.

then we cut along the clavicle to the acromion and finally make a round cut around the arm. 

the skin was removed, and then the subcutaneous adipose tissue (fat, ugh), and my cadever had the most adipose tissue in the whole lab, as in almost 1-1.5 centimetres thick.

after peeling the skin off, making a sort of windowlike sturcture, then we cut off the skin from the body completely by cutting along the midaxiallary line.

so now we get a clear view of the pectoralis major, the serratus anterior, and part of the deltoid.

and in the deltopectoral triangle (the groove between the deltoid and the superior end of the pectoralis major) we could see the cephalic vein.

basically that's it. and we're leaving it for the year 2s who are going to dissect the muscles.

general impressions:

it's hard to feel afraid of dead bodies in a well lit lab, with over 100 students in it

penises look gross after treating them with formalin, the scrotal sac looks worse, probably going to have nightmares.

ugh

zombie penises......... disgusting

formalin smells bad.

most of the cadevers are really thin, subcutaneous fat almost absent, it's just my luck to get the fat one, which entails the most work.

poor homeless people, at least your bodies will benefit science.

bye, got to go puke now =)