Butterflies rip apart my stomach with the uneasiness, excitement, anxiousness, of dissecting a human body. I contemplate the unnatural nature of such an act and ask, “Will my actions be excused if it’s in the pursuit of learning to heal others?” 

 

Would that even be enough to justify the remarkable gift of these donors to us? 

 

The emotions of the first day of Anatomy Lab cannot be understated. 

 

I meet my donor. In these first brief moments, I acknowledge that she will be both teacher and patient. By relinquishing autonomy of her body, she gifts us an intimate part of her being in an act of selflessness and dedication to learning. I pause before my first cut. 

 

Here, I stand wrapped in my lab coat, shielded by my goggles, while she lays her body out on the table, exposed to proding forceps and studious eyes. I stand attentive, ready to learn from her last lecture. 

 

Such vulnerability. Her teachings reveal the beauty and intricacies of the human body—arteries and veins intertwine like vines on a tree, seeding life into her. My teacher sears memories of anatomical structures in the forms of touch, sight, sound, and smells—imagery that no textbook nor professor could ever convey. 

 

Such compassion. Never before have I faced my mortality, a lesson that only she and the donors could teach. The very consciousness of our mortality spawns a new revelation of our humanity—one that pushes us to value every moment of our lives. Of my life. Of my future patients’ lives. I hold her heart in my hands, but I know I cradle her soul. We learn that cells and molecules and science and theories keep us alive, yet she reminds me that emotions, passions, and memories are what we stay alive for. 

 

I’ve hardly known my donor. For many of my future patients, I will only know a small piece of their lives. And regardless of the extent I know someone and their actions as a human in their lifetime, here, my donor teaches me the intrinsic value of human life. 

 

The price for these lessons? It will be her physical existence on this earth—a price I cannot fully grasp and one that compels me to spend many hours, even nights, in the anatomy lab. To not devote my full effort would be squandering her sacrifice. So few people in the world will ever be the recipient of such a gift. What makes me deserving of such an experience? Am I worthy?

 

And I realize, I must now go and make it worth it. 

 

The souls of our donors—our teachers—must live on in our actions. It will live on in the patients that we heal. It will live on in the families and loved ones that we console. It will live on in the future students we may train. And for every patient I treat, I pray I pay back a small amount towards the unpayable debt to the teacher who gave her body for my training.