Back to the cadaver
Mar. 26th, 2004 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninevirtuesSo.... I've been a trifle busy, and spared you all a detailed description of the upper arm. So I'll tell you about the elbow: The instructor said, "Expose the elbow joint." I was in a singleminded mood that day, so I went about it much like carving a turkey, slicing straight through muscle and tendon to summarily remove any meat clinging to the elbow joint. Pretty soon, I had it bare of any flesh, and there it was... a grooved and striated joint. The humerus meets the radius and ulna at the elbow joint, and so there are three joints: humeroradial, humeroulnar, radioulnar. The instructor came by and was too polite to actually frown, but took the scalpel away from me and began gently, neatly removing fascia from skin and separating muscles.
Someone else dissected out the forearm muscles on the other side from my mangled elbow, so yesterday I got to the hand. We will need to do both hands, since there are several zillion layers in there. So I started removing the skin. You would think this would be easy, but the cadaver's fingers don't move so well anymore, so it's hard to get between them. I didn't want to bend the elbow.... it's hanging by its lateral collateral ligament, and I don't want to detach it entirely; I tried to move the entire arm up, so I could get to the palm of the hand. No dice. I tried again and heard a sickening crack from the shoulder region, a noise that strongly suggested that I'd broken something irreparable.
"Oooh, I don't know what that was, and I don't wanna know."
In the end, Brian tried again to move the arm over the cadaver's head, earning him another sickening popping noise and several shudders from us. After that, we made him supinate the arm (turn it palm up) and hold it, but eventually we discovered that it was best if I turned the arm at 90 degrees (hand sticking out over the bench) and sat on the floor, almost under the hand, working on it from there.
The palmar aponeurosis (skin of the palm) is very thick and tough. It's hard to remove, especially when the fingers are curled in. The skin between the fingers is also tough to remove when the fingers won't deviate (move side to side, like making the vulcan peace sign). Several times I wanted a third hand tool like I'd use for sewing, so I could pull the skin taut, move the fingers right, and use the scalpel all at once.
Also, I strongly suspect that I got pieces of cadaver in my hair. Euuuuuuuuuuugh! Yesterday my clothes and I definitely smelled like formalin when I got home.
I am pleased to report, though, that my work on the hand was very neat and tidy, and earned me a compliment from the instructor.
The group next to ours removed the skin on the abdominal wall of their cadaver, and promptly discovered a large herniation. That's right, they ran into the intesties a month before we were supposed to get there. They did not like their sneak preview. They went home pretty soon after that.
Someone else dissected out the forearm muscles on the other side from my mangled elbow, so yesterday I got to the hand. We will need to do both hands, since there are several zillion layers in there. So I started removing the skin. You would think this would be easy, but the cadaver's fingers don't move so well anymore, so it's hard to get between them. I didn't want to bend the elbow.... it's hanging by its lateral collateral ligament, and I don't want to detach it entirely; I tried to move the entire arm up, so I could get to the palm of the hand. No dice. I tried again and heard a sickening crack from the shoulder region, a noise that strongly suggested that I'd broken something irreparable.
"Oooh, I don't know what that was, and I don't wanna know."
In the end, Brian tried again to move the arm over the cadaver's head, earning him another sickening popping noise and several shudders from us. After that, we made him supinate the arm (turn it palm up) and hold it, but eventually we discovered that it was best if I turned the arm at 90 degrees (hand sticking out over the bench) and sat on the floor, almost under the hand, working on it from there.
The palmar aponeurosis (skin of the palm) is very thick and tough. It's hard to remove, especially when the fingers are curled in. The skin between the fingers is also tough to remove when the fingers won't deviate (move side to side, like making the vulcan peace sign). Several times I wanted a third hand tool like I'd use for sewing, so I could pull the skin taut, move the fingers right, and use the scalpel all at once.
Also, I strongly suspect that I got pieces of cadaver in my hair. Euuuuuuuuuuugh! Yesterday my clothes and I definitely smelled like formalin when I got home.
I am pleased to report, though, that my work on the hand was very neat and tidy, and earned me a compliment from the instructor.
The group next to ours removed the skin on the abdominal wall of their cadaver, and promptly discovered a large herniation. That's right, they ran into the intesties a month before we were supposed to get there. They did not like their sneak preview. They went home pretty soon after that.
