Anatomy and Physiology Lecture

#46 Roldan M. Sardona

2B-PH

The cadaver viewing that happened last Wednesday October 15 2014 in

the medicine building was my first experience with cadavers. At first I feel anxious
that I will encounter corpse for the first time and excited at the same time thinking
about the benefits of thel knowledge that it will give. We are required by our
Anatomy teacher Maam Dominguez to wear lab gown, gloves and face mask to
avoid contact and for sanitary purposes.
The minute I walked in the room the smell of formalin filled my nose. I
saw a lot specimens and different body regions contained in a glass container filled
with formalin this made me remember what I read on the introduction of our
Anatomy book, the 2 approach in studying anatomy the systematic, it is the
approach used in textbooks and the regional anatomy, the approach used in
medical school. The regional Anatomy is also the approach use during our cadaver
viewing. One of my favorite is the cephalic region, because it holds my favorite part
of the body, the brain. Besides Pharmacy I also want to become a Psychologist so
seeing a human brain in person really fascinates me. The thorax region also
captured my attention because it holds many important organs that we studied in
the classroom like the different cavities in the thorax, bones that shelter the vital
organs, the thymus gland, etc... And systems that we will soon study such as the
respiratory system, digestive system and circulatory system. I also encounter the
lower limbs that contain both the bones such as the femur, fibula, tibia and the 7
bones of the foot and the lower limbs muscles thigh muscle and gastrocnemius.
There is also fetus in jar containers. The fetuses vary on sizes depend on the time
its spend during development in the mothers womb. After spending some time in
the first room we went to the nearby room filled with many cadavers in a long table
wrapped in a black plastic cloth with the strong smell of formalin. The formalin used
in the cadavers was so concentrated that my eyes produced tears by looking at the
cadavers. The first cadaver is an old skinny woman with her skin in the thorax
region peeled off giving us a good view on the different muscles and organs
beneath. The second cadaver is an old skinny man with his skin in the cephalic
region partly peeled exposing his skull. We experienced touching the different
nerves near the lateral chest and seeing the facial muscles of the man. The last
cadaver is a fat woman, a bit younger compared to other cadavers. Her skin has
white decolorization , maybe due to the effect of long exposure to formalin. After
sighting the last cadaver we throw our gloves that have been use in touching the
cadavers. We went downstairs for our last station, where we witness different
organs and the diseases that it may be infected. I saw a lot of diseases in the
organs such as kidney stones, ovary cancer, liver cancer, brain tumor, breast cancer

and malignant melanoma of the skin. This made me realize the strong need to take
care of myself to prevent from obtaining those alarming diseases.
Overall the experience benefited me a lot. It gave me specific details that cannot be fully
understand in textbooks, a good way of imagination that I can use when reading my textbook, and lastly
the motivation I will need to get me ready as a future professional clinical pharmacist.