Halfway through our first dissection lab, we paused around the metal table where my lab group and I were hard at work.
We had just sawed through our donor’s ribcage and peeled back the protective membranes covering her heart and lungs. A sickly green fluid met us, which our instructor diagnosed as a chest infection that may have contributed to the donor’s premature death – though numerous nodules in her lungs argued that cancer had also played a role. Slowed but undeterred, we cleaned her organs and pressed on. I cradled a lung in my right hand as I sliced through her bronchi and pulmonary blood vessels with my left, doing my utmost to keep the tissue whole and intact. As whole and intact as a disease-riddled lung of a dead woman could be.
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