Busy day today - in at 9am to pick up my locker keys and get my skeleton, which took all of two minutes of the two hours allocated! Then off to the jab clinic to be told my jab hadn't reacted and I'd have to come back for a stronger one tomorrow. Then off for a coffee where I had a good old chat with some people I already met and some who I'd seen around but not spoken to. In some ways the free time is nice as it's a chance to chat.
Then onto what for me has been the highlight of the week so far. Some of the group had been out clubbing the previous night so the thought of seeing a dead body wasn't doing their stomachs any favours! I'd seen one before but not as close up as today. We had a great introductory talk from one fo the anatomists, who answered all our questions, and explained some of the rules that everyone had to adhere to. By the time we got towards the end, one of the other groups already had the covers off their cadaver (dead body) so we all turned and gasped!
Anyway - then it was time for our cadaver to be uncovered. Peter did it a piece at a time - first the stomach, then the pelvis and so on - each time explaining what organs were there and answering all the questions. It was all a bit gory at first but I think most of us got acclimatised fairly quickly and were donning gloves to have a feel of the various otrgans that had been cut so they could be taken out and examined.
Then the chest was revealed, and I thought I detected a silicon implant! Peter confirmed this, and said that the woman had had died of cancer and in spite of a mastectomy (the implant was part of reconstructive surgery) it had spread into her body and killed her. It was absolutely fascinating to see all the bones and muscles and how they joined together, and also to see all the quadriceps and so on as more than just a page in the anatomy text book where there's a sketch. Peter also moves the relevant parts to show us the ovaries.
Then we helped turn the cadaver over and looked at the back muscles and the backside - including layers of fat and the various gluteus muscles. Peter highlighted the sciatic nerve and again - it was fascinating to see this close up. It really was going to be an amazing resource for learning about the human body - many UK universities don't have a dissection room. I'm going to be down there on a regular basis. Finally we got our lab coats that we had to wear at all times (except for some bizarre reason for this introductory session!).
It was now lunchtime (someone had a sense of humour when timetabling this) and a lot of us bought chicken sarnies and things but were rather put off when someone suggested it looked a bit like the cadaver flesh. Undeterred I continued to eat! Apparently the smell of formaldehyde makes you hungry.
The afternoon session saw us meet up with out tutor who ran through some formalities and had a bit of a chat to get to know us. Then onto a sort of ice breaker type activity that was one of the better ones I'd been to - and actually brought out some themes about group learning and stuff while still being quite entertaining.
Anyway - that was the first "real" day where I actually felt that we got going on the course as opposed to just admin stuff. All in all thoroughly enjoyable!