My personal statement about cadaver lab as a learning experience:
Of all the classes that I teach, this is the one that means the most to me personally and professionally.
Why do I feel so passionately about spending a day in a chilly lab with a bunch of dead bodies that smell like preservative chemicals? In no other setting do we have the opportunity to study the technical, tangible and physical structure and function of humans from the inside out, and to simultaneously appreciate the transiency and poignancy of the gift of life, with all its sorrows and joys its pleasures and pains.
By seeing where our all of our ancestors have gone, and where we and every patient we treat and every person we know will go, we can see the physical body as a temporary vehicle for the soul, and come to a greater reverence for the value of health, healing, and happiness.
And this lab fills me with appreciation for the generosity the people and their families who give this extraordinary and privileged opportunity to examine their bodies, so that we may put such knowledge to use in the service of humanity, and that we may all enjoy the brief time we have together on our fragile planet Earth. To everyone who makes it possible for us to learn about life from death, I give my profound and heartfelt thanks.
And to those interested in such learning, I hope you will join me in enjoying and making the most of this journey of curiosity, love, and reverence for the miracle of being.
