Unbelievable reality

This morning was one of those critical moments in my preclinical years as a medical student. First of all this year Pathology is one of the bigger subjects and with that are regular autopsies. To be more precise once a week in the mornings. Just the first time was a little strange to say the least, but I recovered well seeing that this was actually part of the science I study. This morning on the second autopsy practical, everything is going normal or as normal as it gets when you are in the morgue performing autopsies.

I seem to look over my sholder, just got this feeling, to see what else was going on. The autopsy room is rather big and has the option of having 6-8 autopsies simultaneously even though that is not a common occurance, hence I look around just to be aware.

I look once and turn right back around, as the neurons were fireing trying to make some relevant picture of what I just witnessed they just seemed not to be able. So a short while later I look back in the same direction and what my mind had put together seemed to be true, even though I had initially repressed the thought.

The third time I looked I had to move closer to get a final confirmation of the situation. There in front of the pathologist and right in front of my eyes was a 25 week old fetus which never took a breath of air. This tiny little thing had been born prematurely (regular pregnancy 38-40 weeks) as a dead fetus.

Just right there in front of me I still could not believe what my eyes were seeing. I still did not hear what the cause of death was but most likely a genetic deficiency of the nervous system that was not compatible with life.


r.mar