Member-only story
Dissection
Medical students are forced to change their perceptions of the dead. There is a human instinct that must be overcome to stick knives and fingers into human flesh
By Meehan Crist
The face lies exposed under fluorescent lights as expert hands place the edge of a serrated blade against its forehead. (Do they call it forehead in the dissection lab? The word is too familiar, too human. In the lab, body becomes cadaver. And yet the students assign names: Eve, Johnny, Marco. The dead are stripped of identity somewhere between donation and distribution, then given new identities over the course of a semester of cutting. There is intimacy in dissection.) The cadaver rocks back and forth on the table. The sound of metal against bone. Dust flying.
The cadaver is turned over to reveal the back of the head so the blade can continue the cut, like a kitchen knife working around the pit of a stubborn avocado. The face is pressed against the table (oh god, the nose!) as the white-coated professor leans his weight into the work. It’s not easy to saw through bone, even the few millimeters of the human skull.
I hold my breath as the top of the skull is removed. Skullcap comes to mind. The spinal cord is snipped and gloved hands reach in to grasp the wrinkled…
