This is just a quick note of sorts, since I should be heading to bed. (Watch me turn this into a long and nonsensical piece of rambling bullshit, right?) Today I was at the symposium at TCU, and it was open to students and faculty of the nursing school, and there was this student sitting on the same row from me, a few seats down.
She was dressed like most students--jeans, T-shirt, backpack--and she pulled out this three ring binder, snapped it open, pulled out a few leaves of paper and got ready to take notes when the speaker came up. It was the paper that caught me--three-hole-punch, college-rule, beautiful paper. I don't think I've used paper like that since I got done with grad school in December 2006.
I'm a sucker for office supplies--especially pens (although I hate blue ink, so I guess that probably means I'm racist or hate babies or something) and notebooks. Seeing that paper made me think of the reams and reams and reams of notes or drawings or essays I've done on that sort of paper in the past. Today, when I go to get paper to jot something down, it's usually from a reporting notebook, torn out, or it's a sticky note or it's a blank sheet of white paper from the printer tray or something. There is no ruled paper like that anymore in my life. It made me sad and happy and nostalgic all at once.
Tomorrow I get paid, and I think I may stop by somewhere and buy a pack of paper and a little binder. Until just a few short years ago, that paper was the symbol of limitless possibilities. I'd like to bring that back into my life, I think.
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Signs Of Fall
TCU was playing Southern Methodist University on Saturday, and Dan bought tickets for us about a week ago so we could go. SMU is the big TCU rival, but it's never really a rivalry because SMU sucks at football--a lot, usually, and it's rare that the game is anything but an ass-stomping.
SMU also happens to be two miles from where Dan lives in Dallas. It's a pretty campus, all red brick faux-Ivy League looking, with big huge trees and every single student dressed to the nines. I have never seen so many dresses and heels at a football game, and I went to freaking TCU--where the girls wear their pearls and sorority T-shirts to games.
Since the stadium was so close and we knew we'd end up parking a half-mile away if we drove, Dan and I went to his parents' house and borrowed their clunker mountain bikes for the weekend. We dressed up in our purple shirts and then biked to the stadium, chaining them up across the street from the stadium. It was the best idea ever--the place was swarming with red and purple, and parking was a nightmare.
It was the first time I'd ever been to the SMU stadium (Dan had been with his best friend, Loren, before) and the first time Dan had ever gone to a TCU game that he wasn't covering from the press box. It was also the first football game we'd ever attended together. I love football games. I can yell at people and clap and be noisy, and it's all very cathartic. It didn't hurt that TCU won 48-7 and are now ranked No. 23 by USA Today and 24 by the Associated Press.
SMU, the Mustangs, also had a teeny tiny black mini horse that they had out on the field with them. They'd run this little black horse across the field when the team entered the field before the game and when they scored (we only saw him in action twice). It was one of the most hilarious things I'd ever seen--the little horse had a handler on either side, and he was wearing a red blanket and little red polo wraps, and they'd kinda walk him around the field and he pricked his ears around and looked really well-behaved. Every time they ran him, though, it was away from us (we were sitting in the end zone) and so all you saw were these furiously-working little hindquarters. Aah, SMU.
Dan made the good point that in terms of smack talking, there isn't a lot you can do with SMU. We were discussing what to yell at the team and its fans, and basically the only thing that sucks about SMU is its football team. It's a rich school, but it's also an academically prestigious one. That means we couldn't yell out "SMU is stupid" or anything like that. Bummer.
The bike ride back to Dan's apartment after the game was awesome--the neighborhoods around the school are very wide and smooth, and it was dark and cool (very few steet lights). It felt like flying. We also got home without any incidents, which is good. The last time I rode in the dark was my first day owning my road bike, and I ran my front wheel into a chain strung around a parking lot and crashed, spraining my elbow and gashing my arm up. Not so cool.
Today we went to see the afternoon Rangers game, where they got beat by the Angels (no surprise there). This time I planned ahead and took lots of bottled drinks and sunscreen. I still can't believe we're going into the end of baseball season and we're in football season. Where the hell did the summer go?
SMU also happens to be two miles from where Dan lives in Dallas. It's a pretty campus, all red brick faux-Ivy League looking, with big huge trees and every single student dressed to the nines. I have never seen so many dresses and heels at a football game, and I went to freaking TCU--where the girls wear their pearls and sorority T-shirts to games.
Since the stadium was so close and we knew we'd end up parking a half-mile away if we drove, Dan and I went to his parents' house and borrowed their clunker mountain bikes for the weekend. We dressed up in our purple shirts and then biked to the stadium, chaining them up across the street from the stadium. It was the best idea ever--the place was swarming with red and purple, and parking was a nightmare.
It was the first time I'd ever been to the SMU stadium (Dan had been with his best friend, Loren, before) and the first time Dan had ever gone to a TCU game that he wasn't covering from the press box. It was also the first football game we'd ever attended together. I love football games. I can yell at people and clap and be noisy, and it's all very cathartic. It didn't hurt that TCU won 48-7 and are now ranked No. 23 by USA Today and 24 by the Associated Press.
SMU, the Mustangs, also had a teeny tiny black mini horse that they had out on the field with them. They'd run this little black horse across the field when the team entered the field before the game and when they scored (we only saw him in action twice). It was one of the most hilarious things I'd ever seen--the little horse had a handler on either side, and he was wearing a red blanket and little red polo wraps, and they'd kinda walk him around the field and he pricked his ears around and looked really well-behaved. Every time they ran him, though, it was away from us (we were sitting in the end zone) and so all you saw were these furiously-working little hindquarters. Aah, SMU.
Dan made the good point that in terms of smack talking, there isn't a lot you can do with SMU. We were discussing what to yell at the team and its fans, and basically the only thing that sucks about SMU is its football team. It's a rich school, but it's also an academically prestigious one. That means we couldn't yell out "SMU is stupid" or anything like that. Bummer.
The bike ride back to Dan's apartment after the game was awesome--the neighborhoods around the school are very wide and smooth, and it was dark and cool (very few steet lights). It felt like flying. We also got home without any incidents, which is good. The last time I rode in the dark was my first day owning my road bike, and I ran my front wheel into a chain strung around a parking lot and crashed, spraining my elbow and gashing my arm up. Not so cool.
Today we went to see the afternoon Rangers game, where they got beat by the Angels (no surprise there). This time I planned ahead and took lots of bottled drinks and sunscreen. I still can't believe we're going into the end of baseball season and we're in football season. Where the hell did the summer go?
Monday, August 18, 2008
Intimidation, High School Style
Around May I decided my new work out of choice would be running stairs. Since the beginnging of 2008, I decided I needed to work out at least three times a week, both for my health (I run so I can eat donuts) and for my sanity (oooh, nature! kinda!) and started going running in this neighborhood Dan used to live in.
Once it started getting really hot it was miserable for running. I'm not a chipper person who can get up at 6 a.m. and run before work; I feel shitty for the rest of the day when I work out in the morning. I work out immediately after work, because once I get home, I'm probably not going to move from my couch.
I gave up running and started running stairs instead. I go run dozens of times up and down at the local high school, which is about a quarter mile from work--there's only 24 steps, do I have to do a lot of reps. (Like 80 reps . . . yeah, a lot. Boring) I did reps at the TCU stadium for a while, until the temperature got over 100 degrees and the temperature inside that miserable metal-and-concrete stadium got over 110. That's insane.
Today I went out to run stairs at the high school and there were dozens of football players on the field and high school students EVERYWHERE. Kids hanging out in the parking lot, kids on the steps leading down to the track that I run, kids in the shade under the trees. I couldn't bear the thought of going and sweating and looking insane (anyone who runs steps so many times looks insane) in front of all these high school kids. There were all these high school boys down on the field, and all these tiny, tan, pony-tailed high school girls everywhere else.
I've been out of high school for seven years. I am a successful person with a job, a driver's license and a car, two degrees, and a cell phone plan I pay for all on my own. (Even if I sometimes pay it two months late.) I should not be intimidated by the thought of being grody and sweaty in front of a bunch of high schoolers.
And yet I was, I went to Dan's neighborhood and went running instead. Good thing it was relatively cool outside today.
Once it started getting really hot it was miserable for running. I'm not a chipper person who can get up at 6 a.m. and run before work; I feel shitty for the rest of the day when I work out in the morning. I work out immediately after work, because once I get home, I'm probably not going to move from my couch.
I gave up running and started running stairs instead. I go run dozens of times up and down at the local high school, which is about a quarter mile from work--there's only 24 steps, do I have to do a lot of reps. (Like 80 reps . . . yeah, a lot. Boring) I did reps at the TCU stadium for a while, until the temperature got over 100 degrees and the temperature inside that miserable metal-and-concrete stadium got over 110. That's insane.
Today I went out to run stairs at the high school and there were dozens of football players on the field and high school students EVERYWHERE. Kids hanging out in the parking lot, kids on the steps leading down to the track that I run, kids in the shade under the trees. I couldn't bear the thought of going and sweating and looking insane (anyone who runs steps so many times looks insane) in front of all these high school kids. There were all these high school boys down on the field, and all these tiny, tan, pony-tailed high school girls everywhere else.
I've been out of high school for seven years. I am a successful person with a job, a driver's license and a car, two degrees, and a cell phone plan I pay for all on my own. (Even if I sometimes pay it two months late.) I should not be intimidated by the thought of being grody and sweaty in front of a bunch of high schoolers.
And yet I was, I went to Dan's neighborhood and went running instead. Good thing it was relatively cool outside today.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Plan B
For those unfamiliar with the story of my college application process, let's travel back in time to my junior year of high school, when I was living in New Mexico and attending a tiny high school where the calculus teacher didn't like me.
Do you remember how much mail you started to get once you took the SATs and the ACTs? You go to the tests and fill out all your contact information and put in little codes for which colleges you're interested in, and then suddenly the mailbox is flooded with letters and brochures from colleges and universities all over the country. I had an accordian file that I would slip brochures into, where I could go back and look at them on quiet Sunday afternoons.
I got a brochure from Texas Christian University my junior year, and I remember it came in a lilac-colored envelope with tony purple horned frogs all over it. The list of majors impressed me, and I filed it away.
My senior year (the story of my senior year that I thought I didn't have to take should be saved for another day, because there's nothing like an uplifting story of the mishmash of public education standards across states) was spent in Alabama, in another small town. I was in the process of choosing which college to apply to, and I sent everything out and then waited anxiously that spring to hear back.
TCU (they are branding themselves as that because most Christian schools in Texas are crazy Christian schools, where you have to go to chapel and pretend to be Christian or something like that, and TCU just requires you take some kind of religion class, even if it's Witching 101) (I have a lot of parenthetical asides in this post, don't I?) accepted me, and I accepted them. They sent me a white polo shirt with a horned frog embroidered on the breast and a bumper sticker, and I was totally sold.
TCU was the ideal school because of one major thing: I could major in neuroscience, or I could major in journalism. None of the other schools had both of these offered to undergraduates, and while TCU wasn't my first choice, I did realize that this was a good thing.
I enrolled as a neuroscience major, fully intending to become a physician. A neurosurgeon, to be exact. I was going to cut into people's brains, clamp off aneurysms, and do daring treatments to treat spinal cord injuries. Oh yeah, and I was going to write books about all of this.
Halfway into my first semester at TCU, I realized the decision I had made, and wasn't sure I could stick by it. Chemistry was a struggle (chem has never been easy for me, but if I had a teacher that gave a shit I'm fairly certain I could do well, even if I never perform spectacularly), and I was seeing other pre-med track student run away as quickly as they could to become communications majors or something like that. On a half-impulse, I dropped chemistry and switched my major to journalism.
About two weeks after that, one of my biology professors told me about a science writing program at MIT. That was my answer, I thought--even if I'm not a physician, I'll write about science and health, and all will be right in the world. I coasted through my journalism degree with the purpose to write solely about topics that interested me, and went on to graduate school at Boston University, where I dropped tens of thousands of dollars on an awesome master's in science journalism.
After being out in the newspaper world for a year and a half, I'm finding myself in a slightly uncomfortable position. Anyone who's read this blog over that time knows I have questions about newspapers. Specifically, my part in them. I'm passionate about the need for good coverage, and I love my job right now as a health and science reporter, but I don't know if this is where I'm meant to be. Part of me is bored. Part of me is having a quarter-life crisis. Part of me wants to know I made the right decision.
All of me has been researching going back and getting all those extra classes to apply to medical school. Dan and I have discussed how hard it will be for two journalists to find two good jobs in the same area, and the possibility of me essentially dropping off the face of the planet for four years of medical school and many years of a residency. I bought an MCAT prep book last time I was at the half price book store.
I guess I just want to make sure that my plan B of journalism is the right plan. I'd hate to look back when I'm 60 and think, I should have just gone for it. Nothing is going to happen immediately, naturally, and if I do get into medical school in a few years, I'm definitely not flaking out, but don't be surprised to hear about me taking science classes at one of the local colleges to boost my postbac resume.
And if plan B is the right plan, at least I'll be a better writer for the extended science background, right?
(Expect more ruminations on this as I work myself into a second-guessing mess.)
Do you remember how much mail you started to get once you took the SATs and the ACTs? You go to the tests and fill out all your contact information and put in little codes for which colleges you're interested in, and then suddenly the mailbox is flooded with letters and brochures from colleges and universities all over the country. I had an accordian file that I would slip brochures into, where I could go back and look at them on quiet Sunday afternoons.
I got a brochure from Texas Christian University my junior year, and I remember it came in a lilac-colored envelope with tony purple horned frogs all over it. The list of majors impressed me, and I filed it away.
My senior year (the story of my senior year that I thought I didn't have to take should be saved for another day, because there's nothing like an uplifting story of the mishmash of public education standards across states) was spent in Alabama, in another small town. I was in the process of choosing which college to apply to, and I sent everything out and then waited anxiously that spring to hear back.
TCU (they are branding themselves as that because most Christian schools in Texas are crazy Christian schools, where you have to go to chapel and pretend to be Christian or something like that, and TCU just requires you take some kind of religion class, even if it's Witching 101) (I have a lot of parenthetical asides in this post, don't I?) accepted me, and I accepted them. They sent me a white polo shirt with a horned frog embroidered on the breast and a bumper sticker, and I was totally sold.
TCU was the ideal school because of one major thing: I could major in neuroscience, or I could major in journalism. None of the other schools had both of these offered to undergraduates, and while TCU wasn't my first choice, I did realize that this was a good thing.
I enrolled as a neuroscience major, fully intending to become a physician. A neurosurgeon, to be exact. I was going to cut into people's brains, clamp off aneurysms, and do daring treatments to treat spinal cord injuries. Oh yeah, and I was going to write books about all of this.
Halfway into my first semester at TCU, I realized the decision I had made, and wasn't sure I could stick by it. Chemistry was a struggle (chem has never been easy for me, but if I had a teacher that gave a shit I'm fairly certain I could do well, even if I never perform spectacularly), and I was seeing other pre-med track student run away as quickly as they could to become communications majors or something like that. On a half-impulse, I dropped chemistry and switched my major to journalism.
About two weeks after that, one of my biology professors told me about a science writing program at MIT. That was my answer, I thought--even if I'm not a physician, I'll write about science and health, and all will be right in the world. I coasted through my journalism degree with the purpose to write solely about topics that interested me, and went on to graduate school at Boston University, where I dropped tens of thousands of dollars on an awesome master's in science journalism.
After being out in the newspaper world for a year and a half, I'm finding myself in a slightly uncomfortable position. Anyone who's read this blog over that time knows I have questions about newspapers. Specifically, my part in them. I'm passionate about the need for good coverage, and I love my job right now as a health and science reporter, but I don't know if this is where I'm meant to be. Part of me is bored. Part of me is having a quarter-life crisis. Part of me wants to know I made the right decision.
All of me has been researching going back and getting all those extra classes to apply to medical school. Dan and I have discussed how hard it will be for two journalists to find two good jobs in the same area, and the possibility of me essentially dropping off the face of the planet for four years of medical school and many years of a residency. I bought an MCAT prep book last time I was at the half price book store.
I guess I just want to make sure that my plan B of journalism is the right plan. I'd hate to look back when I'm 60 and think, I should have just gone for it. Nothing is going to happen immediately, naturally, and if I do get into medical school in a few years, I'm definitely not flaking out, but don't be surprised to hear about me taking science classes at one of the local colleges to boost my postbac resume.
And if plan B is the right plan, at least I'll be a better writer for the extended science background, right?
(Expect more ruminations on this as I work myself into a second-guessing mess.)
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Bodies
I'm reading a book right now about a physician and her journey through Harvard Medical School and the transition to becoming a doctor, and while her writing style sort of grates on my nerves, I'm still fascinated by the whole idea of turning into a doctor. Physicians in this country are still largely better educated, better paid, and better respected than most in our communities, and sometimes I lose sight of the fact that they all started off somewhere.
As a reporter, I've gotten the chance to glimpse into that somewhere-starting place a few times, and every time I do it leaves me more confused about my future. I love journalism, I love writing, I love words and sharing stories and scenes with others, but at the same time, I find myself pining for the scientific knowledge that would let me change lives. Anyone close to me can attest to the fact that I'm constantly talking about how maybe I need to become a doctor or a nurse or a PA or NP or something.
A few weeks ago, our local medical school hosted about a dozen high school students during a summer seminar called More Knowledge In Science. I was writing a story about this, since it's a demonstration of the community outreach the school does as well as an example of how much funding is needed through various levels of the government to make these programs possible. I went with the kids the day they went into the gross anatomy lab at the school, and it really made me excited to see these kids as engaged and curious as I was.
It was my first time in the gross lab; there were about two dozen stations, each with a computer and a basin for dissection, and bright yellow trash cans stenciled with "Human Tissue Waste Only" or some other dire warning. We all gathered around one stainless steel table with a white body bag on it, and the PhD who was teaching that day gave the kids a short intro about how all the bodies were donated to science, and that these were people who wanted others to learn more about the quiet inner workings beneath the skin, fat, muscle and fascia.
The cadaver had already been dissected, and it had the muted, beige-gray colors of formaldehyde and time. I don't know how old it was, but the organs had already been separated and could easily be removed, like puzzle pieces. The kids pulled on gloves and handled the organs, poking fingers into blood vessels and pulling on tendons. I thought of the exhibits at the Body Worlds shows, touring through museums.
I went back to work that day and a coworker asked if something smelled funny; it was me, naturally, chilled and marinated in the chemical smell of science. It was quite a different experience than the autopsy I got to see at the medical examiner's office back in the late winter.
The autopsy made me nervous; for days before, I worried about whether I would pass out or feel nauseous and have to leave. When I was in high school, we had a family friend who was a veterinarian. I was thinking of being a vet at the time, and she invited me to spend a day with her during the summer. The first thing I saw was a small dog having surgery on its eye, which I think had been popped out of its socket for some reason. I was in there for about a minute and a half before I started getting lightheaded and woozy. I had to spend a half hour on the floor with my head between my knees and drinking a Coke before I felt well again.
The autopsy didn't make me woozy or lightheaded. Part of me feels proud of that, and part of me feels guilty. This was not a person who donated their body to science. This is a person who had been found dead in their bed just hours earlier. The body was still wrapped in the bedsheets. The colors were rich and still had the tones I would associate with life. The heart was full of thickening blood. The brain had many subtle colors. The organs looked as though if they were put into the right body, they would still work.
I was awe-struck by the autopsy, and asked lots of questions, along with my fellow media people who were there as well. The ME's office has a policy where autopsies can be viewed for teaching purposes; med students, nursing students, etc, can come through and see a body be studied for clues about its death. By asking questions and trying to remember all the info from my anatomy and physiology classes, I would stay detached. It was just a body.
The autopsy did have an effect on me. I was afraid of nightmares that night, but I didn't have any. The next day, I went on the ME's website and looked at the listings of deaths. Remembering the body and the rough time of death, I was able to figure out who the body belonged to. It belonged to a person, and I had the name, and I wondered how the family was going about making funeral arrangements. It had been a sudden death.
I guess it's taken me a while to write about it because I didn't know how to go about it. I don't want to trivialize death, but I don't want to trivialize the learning opportunities in it, either. As other writers have said, death is a great unknown, but there is so much to be learned from it. The cadaver, the body, each was a person with a history and life. Same goes for the various pickled organs on the shelves at the medical school; the stillborn baby with anacephaly and conjoined twins had mothers who carried them in their bodies and fathers and family histories. But you can't think about that too much if you're trying to learn.
I think that's the most fascinating thing about becoming a medical professional: learning to draw that line between detachment and compassion. As a journalist, it's something I can look in on, and I can have my own small struggles with sources or whatnot, but it's nothing compared to what the MDs and RNs face.
Also, it doesn't compare to what some reporters face, like cops reporters or those who cover disasters. Dan has seen his share of dead bodies, many from car accidents, and he's never said that he's been affected by them. He has said that they have to be viewed as mannequins or puppets instead of people, though. Thank goodness I haven't had to interview family members shortly after a death or tragic event.
I don't really have a grand thesis to this post or anything; it's just some musings on the body, and specifically the dead body and how to handle it. One thing I would do, however, is encourage people to consider donating their bodies to science. It's not for everyone; many people have religious objections to it, which is fine. Everyone should become an organ donor, though. The body is a glorious thing, even if it is deceased. And what better way to honor something than to share it, either through its individual parts or through the knowledge that comes through knowing and understanding all of it together.
As a reporter, I've gotten the chance to glimpse into that somewhere-starting place a few times, and every time I do it leaves me more confused about my future. I love journalism, I love writing, I love words and sharing stories and scenes with others, but at the same time, I find myself pining for the scientific knowledge that would let me change lives. Anyone close to me can attest to the fact that I'm constantly talking about how maybe I need to become a doctor or a nurse or a PA or NP or something.
A few weeks ago, our local medical school hosted about a dozen high school students during a summer seminar called More Knowledge In Science. I was writing a story about this, since it's a demonstration of the community outreach the school does as well as an example of how much funding is needed through various levels of the government to make these programs possible. I went with the kids the day they went into the gross anatomy lab at the school, and it really made me excited to see these kids as engaged and curious as I was.
It was my first time in the gross lab; there were about two dozen stations, each with a computer and a basin for dissection, and bright yellow trash cans stenciled with "Human Tissue Waste Only" or some other dire warning. We all gathered around one stainless steel table with a white body bag on it, and the PhD who was teaching that day gave the kids a short intro about how all the bodies were donated to science, and that these were people who wanted others to learn more about the quiet inner workings beneath the skin, fat, muscle and fascia.
The cadaver had already been dissected, and it had the muted, beige-gray colors of formaldehyde and time. I don't know how old it was, but the organs had already been separated and could easily be removed, like puzzle pieces. The kids pulled on gloves and handled the organs, poking fingers into blood vessels and pulling on tendons. I thought of the exhibits at the Body Worlds shows, touring through museums.
I went back to work that day and a coworker asked if something smelled funny; it was me, naturally, chilled and marinated in the chemical smell of science. It was quite a different experience than the autopsy I got to see at the medical examiner's office back in the late winter.
The autopsy made me nervous; for days before, I worried about whether I would pass out or feel nauseous and have to leave. When I was in high school, we had a family friend who was a veterinarian. I was thinking of being a vet at the time, and she invited me to spend a day with her during the summer. The first thing I saw was a small dog having surgery on its eye, which I think had been popped out of its socket for some reason. I was in there for about a minute and a half before I started getting lightheaded and woozy. I had to spend a half hour on the floor with my head between my knees and drinking a Coke before I felt well again.
The autopsy didn't make me woozy or lightheaded. Part of me feels proud of that, and part of me feels guilty. This was not a person who donated their body to science. This is a person who had been found dead in their bed just hours earlier. The body was still wrapped in the bedsheets. The colors were rich and still had the tones I would associate with life. The heart was full of thickening blood. The brain had many subtle colors. The organs looked as though if they were put into the right body, they would still work.
I was awe-struck by the autopsy, and asked lots of questions, along with my fellow media people who were there as well. The ME's office has a policy where autopsies can be viewed for teaching purposes; med students, nursing students, etc, can come through and see a body be studied for clues about its death. By asking questions and trying to remember all the info from my anatomy and physiology classes, I would stay detached. It was just a body.
The autopsy did have an effect on me. I was afraid of nightmares that night, but I didn't have any. The next day, I went on the ME's website and looked at the listings of deaths. Remembering the body and the rough time of death, I was able to figure out who the body belonged to. It belonged to a person, and I had the name, and I wondered how the family was going about making funeral arrangements. It had been a sudden death.
I guess it's taken me a while to write about it because I didn't know how to go about it. I don't want to trivialize death, but I don't want to trivialize the learning opportunities in it, either. As other writers have said, death is a great unknown, but there is so much to be learned from it. The cadaver, the body, each was a person with a history and life. Same goes for the various pickled organs on the shelves at the medical school; the stillborn baby with anacephaly and conjoined twins had mothers who carried them in their bodies and fathers and family histories. But you can't think about that too much if you're trying to learn.
I think that's the most fascinating thing about becoming a medical professional: learning to draw that line between detachment and compassion. As a journalist, it's something I can look in on, and I can have my own small struggles with sources or whatnot, but it's nothing compared to what the MDs and RNs face.
Also, it doesn't compare to what some reporters face, like cops reporters or those who cover disasters. Dan has seen his share of dead bodies, many from car accidents, and he's never said that he's been affected by them. He has said that they have to be viewed as mannequins or puppets instead of people, though. Thank goodness I haven't had to interview family members shortly after a death or tragic event.
I don't really have a grand thesis to this post or anything; it's just some musings on the body, and specifically the dead body and how to handle it. One thing I would do, however, is encourage people to consider donating their bodies to science. It's not for everyone; many people have religious objections to it, which is fine. Everyone should become an organ donor, though. The body is a glorious thing, even if it is deceased. And what better way to honor something than to share it, either through its individual parts or through the knowledge that comes through knowing and understanding all of it together.
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