Reflection on Cadaver Dissection from a First-Year Medical Student

I did not expect cadaver dissections to unsettle me. The thought of holding a human heart in my hands had always seemed almost poetic—a flirtation with mortality. Even the anatomy lab’s meticulously-prepared prosections had been a prelude I endured without much difficulty. But seeing is a verb far removed from doing, and the doing of dissection—the cutting, ripping, and tearing of flesh—knocked me off-center in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

Many great traditions and philosophers urge us to tread upon this earth with mindful reverence, each step a gentle kiss upon its surface. Admittedly, I sometimes trip over my own feet and land a little too hard. Still, my intention is one of tenderness. Dissection, however, is no mere stumble; it is a faceplant into the dirt of the taboo. In our culture, human dismemberment is reserved for the most deranged of murderers…and for medical students. How could I see my every action as a prayer while simultaneously performing this brutal act?

I emerged from our first dissection wide-eyed but largely upright. The tools were unapologetically crude—garden shears, of all things, designed for pruning rose bushes, now employed to crack ribs. Each snip was accompanied by the haunting acoustics of the crunch and snap of human bone. Without a beat, we were herded promptly from the anatomy lab into a simulated patient encounter—perhaps foreshadowing a future in which the relentless demands of medicine would leave little room for emotional processing. It wasn’t until later, as I lay in bed, sleep eluding me, that the mental reel began playing—the image of my own hands tearing through fascia, a roomful of cadavers dripping mysterious fluids, bodies laid bare on their metal tables. The images persisted, and then the tears came—first for several hours, then sporadically, for several days.

For hundreds of thousands of years, we have cared for the bodies of our dead. We have washed them, adorned them with flowers, wrapped them in cloth, or sat with them until burial or cremation. These rituals acknowledge the sacredness of life and death. There is no such reverence in the anatomy lab. Trench humor can be heard from time to time. A staff member referred to a cadaver as being a “six-foot sub with extra meat.” This, it seems, is the way many escape the weight of the act—cloaking themselves in sarcasm, rendering death ridiculous so that it cannot render the living helpless.

Seeking wisdom, I turned to those who had walked this path before me. Their counsel was as measured as it was kind: allow time, take small steps, and trust that I would eventually adjust. And yet, I feared what that ‘adjustment’ might mean. What would it mean for me—for my sense of self—to grow desensitized? Was that who I wanted to become? Was that who I had to become?

To clarify, it wasn’t fear or revulsion that unsettled me, but a deep misalignment between the values I hold dear and the task laid before me. I worried about losing my compassion. The very thing that had propelled me into this profession now felt precarious, as though it might slip away with each slice of the scalpel. I imagined myself years from now, detached and clinical. Would the protective distance I employed now come at the cost of the empathy my future patients would surely need?

I continued to dig for an alternative route, something to reconcile my unease. I understood that the donor had given their body willfully, autonomously. I had their permission to do what needed to be done for my education. But my reservations lingered. I wasn’t comfortable taking them apart simply because it would benefit me. That didn’t feel like a good enough reason.

We were told to think of the cadaver as our first patient, and their body as a gift. My sense was that the lesson here was less about the Latin names of anatomical landmarks and more about the act of giving, itself. 

A dear friend and teacher offered me a perspective that finally settled something inside me: This was a final good they could do.

It is a common desire to be of benefit, be that to a person, cause, or ideal. No matter what choices they had made in life, no matter what differences divided them, each of these donors chose to relinquish ownership of their body and be of benefit, even in death.

They had no knowledge of who would dissect them, who we voted for, or what judgments might be made about their body or lifestyle when they are laid out for all to see. And yet, they still chose to give, to cast their body into the abyss of the unknown with the hope that someone, somehow, might benefit.

While many of us struggle to find the motivation to help even those we know and care for, these donors gave the thing most precious to them to a stranger and let go of all the rest. Honoring their wish means engaging in these uncomfortable acts. We explore their body fully, not just as a means to our own educational ends, but to help them achieve their purpose, allowing them to benefit us.

Even if I struggle to remember which arteries supply the pancreas (splenic, gastroduodenal, and superior mesenteric, right?), I hope I learn this other, perhaps even more vital, lesson.

I hope I learn to be of benefit, no matter to whom.

I hope I learn to give, blindly and fearlessly, as our donors have given to us.