FOR reacton paper

Extra Credit: Trip Reaction Paper

10 December 2009

Cadaver Lab

            Our class took a field trip to Findlay university to see cadavers, learn about donating your body to science, and experiencing some simply anatomy. What I expected beforehand was to see one or two bodies. I thought they would be a little more dissected, maybe a little more age variation, and never thought we would be feeling their organs. I thought that we would look at the bodies, explain more of what her students study from the cadavers, and maybe feel the outsides of the bodies-not take them apart. It was interesting that she had a few brains, so I was glad I asked.

Our guide was very polite and informative. I learned a lot; most important to me was that you have to be cremated after your body is done being studied. I really do not want to be cremated after death, but I guess it would not matter since I would be dead.  I do feel a bit saddened for the families that are waiting for the studies to finish, so that they can get closure. I might start rethinking my decision on donating my body to UCLA because I do not want my family waiting for an unknown amount of time to get closure, I do not want to be cremated, and after watching the way the class acted around the dead I do not want to be left on the table.

The doctor made a stern point that this field trip was not show and tell, also that we need to respect their bodies. I believe this is why she had the faces initially covered. Some students were making fun of how their hands, feet, and breasts look. Jokes were being made and students were uncovering the faces when no one was looking. We should have shown more respect and some students stood over the bodies discussing where they were going out to eat afterwards. There was just no respect, in my opinion, those cadavers were still people-real people who died and had families.

I honestly enjoyed the experience, was glad that I went, and will most likely never get another opportunity to hold a human heart, see a human brain, see inside of a heart, of feel what lungs and tumors feel like. At a point when I thought that we were leaving, I felt bad that someone’s parents or grandparents were lying on the table exposed with their organs all over. I am the one who put their parts back into two of the people and if I could I would have covered them up, too. I know that the doctor would have done it after we left, but I just think that those individuals deserved more respect-even if they were dead.

This was not the first time that I have seen a dead body, either on the embalming table or in a casket, though the experience is something that I will relish. I wanted to see more parts of the people, some organs from the abdomen, and I wish the doctor had introduced the class to the people. Those cadavers are people and I wish we could have got their names along with their age and cause of death. Maybe by putting names to the bodies my classmates would have shown more respect by seeing them as deceased people instead of just cadavers.

            In conclusion, I believe the field trip was a great success and is now helping me rethink my options for after death. I do not think that I want to donate my body to science anymore because in life I do not want to die by being burned and neither after life. Also, I never realized that my family will have to deal with the fact that after the funeral my body would still be out there, for who knows how long, and may not to get closure until my body is returned. That issue is a little hard for me to get over and I can just imagine my family getting over my death and then they would receive my remains and all those feeling would come back to them.