adelaidemedblog

For those who do not know and are interested, year 2 (and year 3) at Adelaide comes with the opportunity to learn anatomy through dissection. It is a rather popular elective - so for those year 1’s reading - get in fast, if that’s your thing.

Limb dissection (or, the beginning of) has got to be the most gory thing I have done so far. Each student pairs with another student which then pair with another pair to learn anatomy through dissection - one pair dissecting a leg, one pair dissecting an arm. Cadavers have their head removed (the head is then given to the 3rd years for cranial nerve dissection) and are then quartered, each pair receiving a quarter. Our job the entire semester is to dissect the limb according to Dr. Jaliya’s instructions (which are a bit vague, but that’s probably because my knowledge is limited). Each cadaver is fresh from preservation (okay so not fresh) and there is a lot of preservative and other mixed fluid seeping out whenever anyone touches anything - so stuff has to be cleared all the time, and we will go through several pairs of gloves (we double glove each hand) due to the fact that latex is actually quite permeable to cadaver juice. I’ve learned also to roll up my sleeves before putting my lab coat on.

First session was spent removing the internal organs, to make the cadaver lighter. This requires no tools whatsoever except a pair of strong, daring hands. Anything removed from the cadaver is placed in a special bag with only that cadaver’s remains (which eventually will get cremated when the university is done with the entire cadaver.) Each session after that so far has been spent removing fat (all ONE sessions after that) because our cadaver happens to have a high fat content.

I’m not allowed to show pictures, but if you were in first year and walked through our dissection room to get to Resource, you’ll see how gory it is Or, you might see how interesting it is and be mesmerised. Yeah right.