Tag: anatomy lab

David G. Thoele

I was on the cusp of my first year in medical school, and time was running out. Classes started in two weeks. I needed a place to live–ideally someplace cheap, not too far from school.

There was an opening at Phi Chi medical fraternity, a large brick house of faded elegance located less than a block from my classes at the University of Minnesota. At $75 a month for a tiny room in the co-ed fraternity, it fit my budget. When I learned about the “beer machine,” an old Coke machine that dispensed beer at 15 cents a bottle (a bargain in 1979), it felt like my kind of place. I signed the lease.

But throughout the entire discussion with my prospective

Michael Terry

I stood right beside them as they slowly slid your head into a plastic bag, looped the coarse twine about your neck and tied it tightly. Like the amateurs they were, they double-knotted it to make sure nothing came loose or dripped out. Then they casually walked away, chatting about what would come next.

Within minutes the bag fogged up, and a clear red liquid pooled at the bottom.

That was just the beginning of the ritual.

I’m sure that under other circumstances you would have put up a fight, Joseph, but today you were no match for them. No matter that they were six slender twenty-somethings, and you at least six feet and 250 pounds; you were on their turf and utterly

Samyukta Mullangi

Growing up, I was the one thought to be the most squeamish about medicine–the needles, the knives, the musty smell of alcohol swabs and the rusty stench of blood. Whenever my mother, an ob/gyn, talked on the phone with her patients about menstruation, cramps and bloating, I’d plug my ears and wish for death by embarrassment. Once, standing in line for a routine TB test, I had a friend pull up a chair for me “in case you faint.” 

So my entire family thought it hilarious when I decided to go to medical school. 

“You know that residents practice stitches on each other, don’t you?” my cousin teased. 

“Consider real estate instead,” my grandmother advised.

In deference to her, I actually did go