Skip to main content

The First Autopsy

 Originally Written: 07/26/17

10am today marks my first ever autopsy. It’s different from anything else I’ve ever seen in medicine yet. There’s a distinct separation of it from surgery in the fact of the gentleness of the operation. Surgeries still have a gentle touch to their work. There’s more inherent respect with it. Maybe it has to do with the distinction between life and death in both cases. However, it still doesn’t mean a body should be manhandled. Truth be told, my thoughts about it are still scattered. It’s better just to do a runthrough of it over the next couple of pages in order to really just process what I had witnessed. It’ll also give me a more balanced look for perspective and some insight to process it.

The patient:

  • 71yo white woman from unknown location
  • Diagnosed with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy at some point in her life, probably later in life
  • Was put on hospice during her last days
  • May have had a meniscus repair or knee replacement
  • Was treated well during hospice
  • My have had some sort of uterine surgery due to difficult finding the uterus
  • May have had liver damage prior to death, I saw nodules in her liver

Update 02/26/18:

  • She was from the US not too far away from where I grew up.
  • Aside from having progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, she also had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
  • She avidly enjoyed knitting according to her records
  • She survived her husband

Other Notes: Quotes from my Lab Chief

  • “You never for forget your first, mine was during medical school in anatomy, so we stuck with the same person for a long time”
  • “I was doing a lot in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. At the time, a lot of the patients were educated, white, males. So, they were left out on their own. So, they would come to the clinic just to talk and I got to know each of them really well. Then they started dropping like flies. And I had to do the autopsy for those, and it was hard because it was like looking at a family member. You never forget. I still remember all their names, what they looked like, everything.”
  • “Yeah, the way that they handle the body isn’t the cleanest. You’d figure they’d give the body a little more dignity. They were alive not too long ago…”

Sketches







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick Take: Putin on Ukraine

  With recent escalation in events between Ukraine and Russia [1] [2] [3], my friend sent me an article written this past summer outlining Putin’s view on the affair. Although I’m not an expert in Slavic politics and foreign relations, that doesn’t stop me from delivering a half-baked opinion on the issue of Ukrainian independence from Russia. I highly recommend that you as the reader read the full article below, it’s surprisingly well written and in a more-or-less heartfelt tone: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 The Putin article is very interesting. I have only an elementary understanding of the region, and only from the viewpoint of the Russian Orthodox Church. While it's true about the history of the old Slavic lands, Holy Rus, and the shared use of Church Slavonic (the old language) [4], how does the former KGB agent of all people not realize how bad the extent of USSR propaganda is [5] [6]? This is the same theme that replays constantly in the world. A g
1 comment
Read more

How I became a more avid reader

 Originally written:  11/30/2018   Preface: I want to start this preface to make it clear that I am not the best, fastest, or most avid reader at all. However, I can say that I made significant progress in this area of my life over the past three or four years. This guide provides the reasons and the processes I undertook to try and read more. Because this guide only reflects my experience, it would be wrong for me to think this is universally applicable to all people. However, I again want to show how much I changed along this process. For instance, I recall that I did not read my first book for pleasure until the winter of 2017. On the contrary, in 2018, I read 5 books from front to back so far. Otherwise, between 2012-2016 I only really read for my college classes. My hope is that this guide can help you become better read in topics you want to learn about in time. 1.     Begin with a topic you want to read about. a.     For me, this was autobiographies. I wanted to learn more about
Post a Comment
Read more

US 2021 Vaccine Mandate Exemption Resources

  Introduction As the push for vaccination attempts to accelerate in the United States due a recent onslaught of mandates from the Biden Administration, many around the web are struggling to find advice for how to approach mandates at their place of work, and more importantly, how to get around it using exemptions.  Be reminded that approximately 40% of the U.S. population remains unvaccinated as of the time of this writing [1]. Therefore, I have a written document in the links below that some of you may find helpful.  I also have a list of links gathered by myself and by a Brazilian collaborator containing various information we have found helpful. My hope is that someone finds some real utility in this post. Disclaimer: I am not a legal scholar. Take all advice at your own risk, but know that I stand by everything that I have written in the document below. I also had a difficulty finding information that is relevant for non-Christians in the US. If you have information for non-Christ
Post a Comment
Read more