Gross Anatomy at its grossest

[The Member Formerly Known As Sophist]

[TMI for the super-squeamish. Don't proceed.]

I did something on Monday I could never have predicted I'd ever be doing in my life...

Ok, as a little background: right now I'm in my first semester of a PhD program in Anatomy Science/Neurobiology (I know, it's a mouthful). In the first semester of the program, the PhD students traditionally take Neuroanatomy. We, however, don't have our own course, we take Neuro with the medical school. So it's a small handful of graduate students thrown in with about 100+ 1st year med students. The lab portion of our course takes place in the Gross Anatomy lab. For anyone not familiar with the idea, it's where med students dissect the entirety of a (preserved) corpse over the course of a semester. Neuroanatomy takes place in the same lab, dissecting the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). At the end of the semester, once the corpse has been flayed, de-gutted, and severed in multiple symmetric ways, the med students move on to the next semester and somebody has to stay and clean up/remove all the bodies.

Guess who got suckered into "Body Moving Day" as my uni calls it.

That's right.

Me.  

I wasn't exactly certain what all Body Moving Day entailed, although I figured we'd be moving the remains of the corpses. But now that I've done it, I have to say that "moving" is a horribly inaccurate adjective to use to describe it.

A fellow student and myself were the only ones there to help two morgue staff members remove about 40 corpses. For about the first half of this several-hour procedure, the other morgue attendant wasn't there, so it was just myself, my fellow student, and one morgue attendant. So my classmate and I show up in our scrubs, ready to start working, and the guy starts telling use what we need to do. Very quickly we realize that we'll be packing corpses into boxes, one corpse per box, in order so that each box can be cremated separately and then remains returned to the families.

BUT... the boxes were about 3 ft. tall and only as wide as the breadth of a very thin person. It's at that point the morgue attendant pulls out a saw-- a MANUAL saw-- and says, "Now you're going to need to saw the legs and the arms, so they'll fit in the boxes... like this..." and he proceeds to saw a shinbone in about 4 quick switches and SNAP! It's at this point that I should impress upon you that while these bodies have been dissected, a considerable portion of their musculature is still very much in tact. So when I say "sawing a shinbone" I in fact mean sawing through an entire leg, minus the skin.

The two of us stood there in slight disbelief at what we were being asked to do, but the whole thing happened so quickly that it was easier to just follow orders than to begin rethinking volunteering. So we just got right down to it. My classmate grabbed the saw, I held the first leg, and we got stuck in. She mainly handled the saw while I held and twisted the limbs. I think we handled about 25 bodies ourselves, dismembered, boxed, tied and taped up. The whole experience was rather surreal. We just kept joking about how it would make interesting Christmas dinner conversation, LOL.

That was quite an experience. --I don't know what KIND of experience. But I joked with bf and told him, "I now know precisely where to put pressure on a man's shin to break it with my bare hands, so be nice to me."  :lol:

[Parts]

 

I had one of those saws at one point they are also used in butchering a lot more back before the band saw and frozen meat though
Well that must have been an interesting day   Good for you and sticking with it and making it through the day

[SleepyDragon]

Back in the day, it seems that the town butcher was, more often than not, the town surgeon as well.

Why are surgeons in the UK called Mr or Miss or Mrs, rather than Dr?

In most other parts of the world all medical practitioners, physicians and surgeons alike, are referred to as ‘Dr’ whereas in the UK surgeons are usually referred to as Mr, Miss or Mrs. This is because, from the Middle Ages physicians had to embark on formal university training to gain possession of a degree in medicine before they could enter practice. The possession of this degree, a doctorate, entitled them to the title of ‘Doctor of Medicine’ or Doctor.

The training of surgeons until the mid-19th century was different. They did not have to go to university to gain a degree; instead they usually served on apprenticeship to a surgeon. Afterwards they took an examination. In London, after 1745, this was conducted by the Surgeons’ Company and after 1800 by The Royal College of Surgeons. If successful they were awarded a diploma, not a degree, therefore they were unable to call themselves ‘Doctor’, and stayed instead with the title ‘Mr’.

Outside London and the largest cities the surgeon served an apprenticeship like many other tradesmen, but did not necessarily take any examination. Today all medical practitioners, whether physicians or surgeons have to undertake training at medical school to obtain a qualifying degree. Thereafter a further period of postgraduate study and training through junior posts is required before full consultant surgeon status is achieved. Thus the tradition of a surgeon being referred to as ‘Mr/Miss/Mrs’ has continued, meaning that in effect a person starts as ‘Mr/Miss/Mrs’, becomes a ‘Dr’ and then goes back to being a ‘Mr’; ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ again!

... From Questions About Surgeons - The Royal College of Surgeons of England

[Icequeen]

I had one of those saws at one point they are also used in butchering a lot more back before the band saw and frozen meat though

Still have mine.  


My grandfather used to work for a mortician, used to talk about stuff like this every time I sat down to eat, it was either that or disgusting bodily functions in excruciating detail.

[DukeNukem]

Your face. Your ass. What's the difference?

[Callaway]

[TMI for the super-squeamish. Don't proceed.]

I did something on Monday I could never have predicted I'd ever be doing in my life...

Ok, as a little background: right now I'm in my first semester of a PhD program in Anatomy Science/Neurobiology (I know, it's a mouthful). In the first semester of the program, the PhD students traditionally take Neuroanatomy. We, however, don't have our own course, we take Neuro with the medical school. So it's a small handful of graduate students thrown in with about 100+ 1st year med students. The lab portion of our course takes place in the Gross Anatomy lab. For anyone not familiar with the idea, it's where med students dissect the entirety of a (preserved) corpse over the course of a semester. Neuroanatomy takes place in the same lab, dissecting the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). At the end of the semester, once the corpse has been flayed, de-gutted, and severed in multiple symmetric ways, the med students move on to the next semester and somebody has to stay and clean up/remove all the bodies.

Guess who got suckered into "Body Moving Day" as my uni calls it.

That's right.

Me.  

I wasn't exactly certain what all Body Moving Day entailed, although I figured we'd be moving the remains of the corpses. But now that I've done it, I have to say that "moving" is a horribly inaccurate adjective to use to describe it.

A fellow student and myself were the only ones there to help two morgue staff members remove about 40 corpses. For about the first half of this several-hour procedure, the other morgue attendant wasn't there, so it was just myself, my fellow student, and one morgue attendant. So my classmate and I show up in our scrubs, ready to start working, and the guy starts telling use what we need to do. Very quickly we realize that we'll be packing corpses into boxes, one corpse per box, in order so that each box can be cremated separately and then remains returned to the families.

BUT... the boxes were about 3 ft. tall and only as wide as the breadth of a very thin person. It's at that point the morgue attendant pulls out a saw-- a MANUAL saw-- and says, "Now you're going to need to saw the legs and the arms, so they'll fit in the boxes... like this..." and he proceeds to saw a shinbone in about 4 quick switches and SNAP! It's at this point that I should impress upon you that while these bodies have been dissected, a considerable portion of their musculature is still very much in tact. So when I say "sawing a shinbone" I in fact mean sawing through an entire leg, minus the skin.

The two of us stood there in slight disbelief at what we were being asked to do, but the whole thing happened so quickly that it was easier to just follow orders than to begin rethinking volunteering. So we just got right down to it. My classmate grabbed the saw, I held the first leg, and we got stuck in. She mainly handled the saw while I held and twisted the limbs. I think we handled about 25 bodies ourselves, dismembered, boxed, tied and taped up. The whole experience was rather surreal. We just kept joking about how it would make interesting Christmas dinner conversation, LOL.

That was quite an experience. --I don't know what KIND of experience. But I joked with bf and told him, "I now know precisely where to put pressure on a man's shin to break it with my bare hands, so be nice to me."  :lol:

My mother-in-law intends to donate her body to science, so I wonder if I should let her know what this will entail?

['andersom']

[TMI for the super-squeamish. Don't proceed.]

I did something on Monday I could never have predicted I'd ever be doing in my life...

Ok, as a little background: right now I'm in my first semester of a PhD program in Anatomy Science/Neurobiology (I know, it's a mouthful). In the first semester of the program, the PhD students traditionally take Neuroanatomy. We, however, don't have our own course, we take Neuro with the medical school. So it's a small handful of graduate students thrown in with about 100+ 1st year med students. The lab portion of our course takes place in the Gross Anatomy lab. For anyone not familiar with the idea, it's where med students dissect the entirety of a (preserved) corpse over the course of a semester. Neuroanatomy takes place in the same lab, dissecting the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). At the end of the semester, once the corpse has been flayed, de-gutted, and severed in multiple symmetric ways, the med students move on to the next semester and somebody has to stay and clean up/remove all the bodies.

Guess who got suckered into "Body Moving Day" as my uni calls it.

That's right.

Me.  

I wasn't exactly certain what all Body Moving Day entailed, although I figured we'd be moving the remains of the corpses. But now that I've done it, I have to say that "moving" is a horribly inaccurate adjective to use to describe it.

A fellow student and myself were the only ones there to help two morgue staff members remove about 40 corpses. For about the first half of this several-hour procedure, the other morgue attendant wasn't there, so it was just myself, my fellow student, and one morgue attendant. So my classmate and I show up in our scrubs, ready to start working, and the guy starts telling use what we need to do. Very quickly we realize that we'll be packing corpses into boxes, one corpse per box, in order so that each box can be cremated separately and then remains returned to the families.

BUT... the boxes were about 3 ft. tall and only as wide as the breadth of a very thin person. It's at that point the morgue attendant pulls out a saw-- a MANUAL saw-- and says, "Now you're going to need to saw the legs and the arms, so they'll fit in the boxes... like this..." and he proceeds to saw a shinbone in about 4 quick switches and SNAP! It's at this point that I should impress upon you that while these bodies have been dissected, a considerable portion of their musculature is still very much in tact. So when I say "sawing a shinbone" I in fact mean sawing through an entire leg, minus the skin.

The two of us stood there in slight disbelief at what we were being asked to do, but the whole thing happened so quickly that it was easier to just follow orders than to begin rethinking volunteering. So we just got right down to it. My classmate grabbed the saw, I held the first leg, and we got stuck in. She mainly handled the saw while I held and twisted the limbs. I think we handled about 25 bodies ourselves, dismembered, boxed, tied and taped up. The whole experience was rather surreal. We just kept joking about how it would make interesting Christmas dinner conversation, LOL.

That was quite an experience. --I don't know what KIND of experience. But I joked with bf and told him, "I now know precisely where to put pressure on a man's shin to break it with my bare hands, so be nice to me."  :lol:

My mother-in-law intends to donate her body to science, so I wonder if I should let her know what this will entail?

Do you think it would change her mind?

She could end up elsewhere too of course.

[The Member Formerly Known As Sophist]

I know one thing for certain: now that I've seen everything that goes on in a Gross lab, I'm definitely not donating my body to science.

[Peter]

That was quite an experience. --I don't know what KIND of experience. But I joked with bf and told him, "I now know precisely where to put pressure on a man's shin to break it with my bare hands, so be nice to me."  :lol:

Can you break them with your bare hands without them being sawed first?

[The Member Formerly Known As Sophist]

That was quite an experience. --I don't know what KIND of experience. But I joked with bf and told him, "I now know precisely where to put pressure on a man's shin to break it with my bare hands, so be nice to me."  :lol:

Can you break them with your bare hands without them being sawed first?

Well, no. But why tell him that? 

['andersom']

That was quite an experience. --I don't know what KIND of experience. But I joked with bf and told him, "I now know precisely where to put pressure on a man's shin to break it with my bare hands, so be nice to me."  :lol:

Can you break them with your bare hands without them being sawed first?

Well, no. But why tell him that?