A well-deserved thank you

Just wanted to give my dissection group's TA and responsible dissection leader Kristyna, demonstrators Sara, Zuzana, Shrey and Nabeel a well-deserved thank you, for a great job during dissections instructing and teaching.

Waiting is the worst part

The hallway outside the dissection rooms were packed with anxious students. I wasn't as nervous as I usually am before these kinds of exams, more focused and just wanted to go in there and preform.

The waiting is the worst part and it's interesting to see how different people cope with stress. Some persons do crazy revision, some sits down on the floor just quietly drowning in nervousness, some guys are jumping around joking and some just try to block everything out with music.
There are some things that I really don't like to do and some things that I have to do before a big exam, this is my protocol:

- I never study on the day of the exam. I don't believe in last minute learning.
- I try not to discuss the exam material before the exam.
- I need at least 8 hours of good sleep to get all the information straight.
- I need a good breakfast.
- I try to drink or eat something rich in sugar right before the exam starts.
- Being nervous is fine, to a certain level. I always try to calm down and even if I'm not
I always put on a calm mask during oral exams.

The first names started to get called out and after 5 minutes the first two guys came out, with smiles on their lips. Facial expressions are the best way of telling if a person passed or not.
Over all the exam seemed to be easy and I confirmed that just minutes later. I was called in and had to sit down and watch my colleague being examined by the head of the Anatomy department Professor Grím. This is where my pulse went up. My exam started off on the anterior compartment of the upper limb and I got approximately ten questions.
It was amazingly easy and I feel a bit disappointed, not only because I screwed up one of the questions but because I wanted to be examined on all of my knowledge. I guess it's supposed to be an introduction because I doubt that the finals are going to be this comfortable. Of course I am glad for passing but the thing is that I was so prepared and I really wanted to get my knowledge confirmed. I still don't have the answer to the question: "do I know enough?"

Dissection #4

As we get closer to the test the dissections get more and more intense, I understand why.
The specimens are almost dissected so that all the structures are visible and orientating details is no longer a guess in the blue.
Reading the previous post you already know about my horrible night and good morning with the insomnia and skull test so this is the rest of the day.

After anatomy my first priority was to get home to eat, being tested and having introductions just drains one's energy and my breakfast wasn't the best of breakfasts. Eating and revising goes hand in hand most of the time so reading up on some topography and vessel pathways got me prepared for today.
I went to the dissection earlier in order to repeat the structures and not very surprisingly a lot of my colleagues did the same. The dissection tables were packed with students starting to freak out over the exam and you could tell from the sound level and the hectic atmosphere, I don't blame them thou, I have the exact same feeling starting to grow within.
Even if my common sense tells me to stay relaxed, focused and that it's not that great of a deal - I think we're making it bigger than what it really is - it's dangerous to underestimate such things as well.

Today was a really interesting and worthwhile day. I actually got to see some very important structures, due to an amazing dissection job from our teachers assistant Kristyna and Nabeel. They spent a lot of time to thoroughly dissect the inguinal canal - the one that is rather tricky both to find and to theoretically visualize.
I've been trying to fill my gap in detail knowledge as well as repeating old stuff such as origin/insertion of muscles which can be confusing sometimes.
Me, Niyat, Jean, Malek, Thomas, Arani and Nina gathered for revision after the day finished and with some supervision from Suresh (2 year student) we managed to repeat the most sufficient parts.
We ended about an hour ago close to midnight and now I really need to get some sleep, or I rather say TRY to get some sleep depending on my brain, because tomorrow morning I have a seminar in the subject we all forgot we have; Histology.

Let's call it a day already, shall we..?

Insomnia part 2

When I was on my way home I really thought I'd get one night of proper sleep.
But gosh, I really can’t sleep any more.
Usually when I have this insomnia I tend to be very sick, starving or a complete nerve wreck about something – like the first night in the army.
This is something different. My head is so filled up with thoughts, course material, upcoming presentations and philosophic questions, and the only time I can really, thoroughly think it all through is when I go to bed.
It’s like putting a computer to waiting mode instead of shutting it down. The shell is quiet but the core is still making calculations - my body is sleeping, almost paralysed, but my head is in a high activity state.

I hardly hit any REM sleep at all and my curve should look like a straight line of 'xtc. I usually remember the majority of my dreams and I am often able to share them but lately I hardly dream at all, which is a big loss since I really like dreaming.
Now it is more like I’m processing and sorting all the incoming information during my “not-asleep-nor-awake”-state.

This quote is from one of the posts from one of the nights during the premed in Stockholm and I've been waiting for it to come back. Imagine this and then compare a Duck Tales Magazine with Sabotta Atlas of Anatomy and then you'll get the estimated difference.
Surprisingly it's showing up rather late which of course is a good sign.

Tonight was bad. My head was sort of imploding from hyperactivity and I mixed foraminae of the skull with visions of my future, dreams about spiders laying eggs in my throat (after paralyzing me with venom) with anatomical topography repetition, good memories from the past with nightmares of being chased by mouthfaced zombies (zombies with faces only containing a big mouth), pasta recipes containing not pasta but optic nerves and so on, the whole night through.
I think I got one hour of effective sleep and on top of that I twisted my neck so now it hurts.

By that processed and said, I'll end this post with some rather good news. Anatomy seminar just ended and I finally got the skull test out of the way so now I can concentrate 100% on the dissection exam on Friday.

Dissection #3

Notes from the dissection black board. Covering the Brachial Plexus and the Axillary Spaces.
Today wasn't as good as the last two days.
Sure, I saw some new structures and learnt a couple of new things but my head just wasn't there with me. I wasn't tired really, nor hungry, I just didn't feel it.
And now I really regret not taking the skull test last Friday because tonight I have to pick up the bits I didn't study a week ago. I'm not getting confused but imagine pouring hot water into a glass of ice water and expect the ice to still be there. I guess you understand that the ice is a metaphor for my skull knowledge slowly crawling deep into the neurons as new fresh information enters.
The glass is bigger than I thought thou, there's still some space left.

Next week is countdown for the semester break and it's only 9 days left until I get to go home again for the first time since I got here. I'm really looking forward to it - but more importantly is to keep the focus to the end.

If you still haven't understood what we're doing in dissections the best thing I can do is to toss you a link to videos. I'm not allowed to publish anything from our class but this might give you a hint and maybe you'll see that it isn't as bad as you think.
On the other hand, I find it very disturbing that there's a lot of dissection videos available at youtube etc. even for younger audiences. If you find the second one disturbing then do not try out the clip labeled "autopsy" in the menu to the right.

Link to Muscle video (good for understanding/insertion/origin/function of muscles)
Link to Dissection video (in my opinion better for dissection of specimen)

Got to get back to the books now, over 'n out...

Dissection #3: Preparation

Inguinal Canal Scheme

The inguinal canal is rather difficult to visualize and there's not too many good pictures out there.

I wonder if this one is a good one and if it's correct(?) - I hope I got the idea right but I'll see during today's dissection.

Dissection #2

Pratik keeps my friends in group 4 busy at all times. Seems like very good theoretic revision.

Dissections today were a lot more hectic than last Friday. I don't know why it felt that way because it started off pretty quietly. Since half my group had retest in ligaments and joints they stayed in the big lecture hall and I actually got the whole limb for myself. I took my time and tried to apply some knowledge that I repeated during the weekend.
I knew we had to go through a small test during the day and since I was alone around the table with the best dissected specimens one of our demonstrating assistants came over and started to test me on the lower limb. I got questions on random muscles, topography such as the retromaleolar space, popliteal fossa and the nerves running along the spaces.

I did pretty good and the best thing is that I feel pretty confident with my knowledge so far.
Later on I got to know that I know far from enough, I got quizzed by different demonstrators and every time another detail came up that I didn't recognized - not to nice for the moment but it's a good way of filling the gaps.
The best thing about having the instructors around is that you can always drain them on information and I spent more time revising with them than dissecting which I guess is more important for passing the test on Friday.
I also have my skull test around the corner but I won't stress out about that just yet, there're still a lot to cover in the topography and pure anatomy of the structures on the cadavers.

Ever since we started to dissect I've been trying to keep a look out for the lymph vessels and the lymph nodes. It's a structure that we haven't touched yet which I don't understand since it's as important as every thing else. I finally got to see a lymph node today thou, but it wasn't as awesome as I'd imagine it to be - what a let down, right?!
Imagine a little boy hoping for an awesome TMNT-action figure for x-mas gift and finds out that the box contains... socks....

Still, the human body is pretty amazing and it sucks that I can't share the experience of seeing it with all of you.

Well, three more days to go before the big test and I hope that I'll be able to cover it all and feel somewhat confident to pull it off nicely.
I'll wake up early tomorrow for some breakfast and revision...

Dissection #2: Getting geared up

Exhaustion, Brains and CPU

It hit me now as I'm going to bed, and I'm not joking, that I've been outside the apartment thrice this weekend: once for some grocery shopping at the Potraviny downstairs and two times to go to the gym.
The rest of the time I have been, guess what?
You probably guess right; studying. (I also started watching Grey's Anatomy but mainly: studying)
Not only am I amazed over how quickly the time just disappeared but also over how much work I've got done. Now I just hope that it all have sticked to my head - a head heavier than after the worst hungover imaginable.
I can't relax and trying to sleep is even more pointless. My head is exhausted, and it's still trying to revise as I close my eyes. It's like I'm mentally worn down but physically my body is fine - I guess I shouldn't have skipped the gym tonight.
I think there's a party going on up in my office with everyone invited: muscles, nerves, arteries and veins, everyone except sleep.

Computers have it easier, I guess they don't "feel" exhausted but hey, even they get worn down by time. It's stated that we'll never invent a computer as powerful as the human brain.
I can imagine why the computer always are slower; in a simple equation they can't just see the answer out of experience, take 1+1=2 for example. I at least are able to just see the number 2 without even processing the calculation(?). The computer however have to put the equation together, process it and then give the answer. But what if the computer stored all the answers and created "experience", if you know what I mean. But after all, I guess the human will program that binary equation for the computer to find all the answers in the first place.
But I still really can't neglect the thought that one day there might be computers wired together with neurons. Or even more far-out: humans wired up with a spare part of CPU (hopefully we wont go there, I'd rather see that we unlock the technique to reproduce organs instead...)

I'm not enlightened enough to understand it yet, but no matter how the brain works, it's an amazing structure in the body and I am grateful that it works...

Dissection #1

(photo borrowed from kickassetout, note that this is not Uni. dissection room. no cred taken)

I went to the anatomy building a good half an hour before the dissection course started in order to get a locker and perhaps get a good slot at the table.
When I entered the entrance was filled by my colleague, every one of us ready to carve in on the specimens.
Dr. Snajdr gathered the group and tried to get the attention of the buzzing crowd of students, which he managed to do rather quickly considering all the excitement.
A short introduction followed with information about the different cutting techniques, important areas to be vary not to destroy, common rules and so on. It was nice to see all of my colleagues in lab coats, looking all proper and professional.

I was expecting our class to have two full specimens and some free limbs but unfortunately, by unknown reason, we only got one full scale body. We divided into two groups with 13 people in each group and started to continued carving of the fat tissue from our specimen (the second year demonstrators had already started to dissect during our introduction in order to save us time).

We got to dissect on our own under supervision of our teacher assistant Kristyna and the first hour simply flew by. A few minutes later I moved from dissecting the dorsal side to clean up the posterior aspect of the left arm and finally engaged the fascias of the muscles and some yet unidentified nerves and veins. I isolated the nerves and vessels and found out it was the ulnar nerve.
By now my scalpel was blunt but I din't change it due to the fact that time soon was over any way.

Even with 6-8 sharp scalpels working on one specimen from all sides and angles there were no cutting incidents - only a close one.
 The grease from the subcutaneous layer covers pretty much everything including your gloves and tools. I slipped many times, luckily only with the forceps, but the demonstrator to my left was not far away to cut my cheek up.
She was making a cut from underneath, with the sharp edge of the scalpel pointing in my direction, while I was sitting down on a chair concentrating on my own cutting with my face just next to the tissue. I guess she tried to get through a rather dense structure and in my periphery I suddenly saw her either slip, or actually get through the tissue, plunging out with the overpowered motion towards my face. Luckily my reflexes projected my head back and sideways and the blade never reached me. I don't know how close it actually was but I can guarantee you that it felt pretty close.

I didn't learn a lot today but more importantly I got to see how the tissue behaves when cut and now I know what to study during the weekend.
Kristyna even set up a test on Monday, which I in fact really like since it motivates me to study even more.

It's going to be a long week with a lot of studying but the reward is pretty neat; a lot of knowledge, fun and in the end hopefully a credit...

Preparing for a busy week

Next week is dedicated to dissections.
Every day from noon till evening we're going to have intense dissections and we've been promised tough studies to keep up with the course and little sleep.
I'm looking forward to it due to the fact that we'll start from the beginning, dissecting our way through the different layers of the body to finally isolate different structures in the task given to us. This means that we'll cover pretty much everything from skin, subcutaneous layers, muscles, nerves, arteries and veins - repetition of these chapters will be crucial over the weekend.
Simultaneously I've chosen to study and get tested on the skull which in fact are one of the most heavy parts of the winter course, at least so I've been told. Some of my colleagues are taking the skull test on Friday to get rid of it before the dissection course start but since I've spent time on Latin and Czech, perhaps a bit too much, I don't feel ready for a pretest.
I'm positive that I'd pass it if I'd take it but I rather study it properly and thoroughly simultaneously with the dissection in order to keep up my good marks.

Last week's hard labor got payed off rather good; getting back a really good result on the previous Anatomy test of the axial skeleton as well as passing the Czech test and the Latin test of this week. Tomorrow we'll get back the Histology test and as previously posted I do believe I'll pass it as well which makes me really happy.

I'd love to write a lot more, but time is not to be wasted these days, and soon I'll give a bunch of friends a Latin crash course walk-through for their test tomorrow...

The worst apple pie ever

I just experienced one of the grossest things so far.
My mom and dad arrived tonight and today we went down to Pivovarský Dûm for some beer and good food.
We ordered Czech specialties such as Knedlik and drank their special brewed beer. I thought I'd finish the evening off with an apple pie and this is where the gross part comes in.
The apple pie looked amazing with cinnamon, flour sugar and golden apple slices but the first piece I put in my mouth just made me sick.
Believe me when I say that the taste of the butter dough resembled the smell of the dissection part of the anatomy building so much that I almost spitted it back on the plate.
Never before have I experienced such similarity of two totally different things. The mere though made me sick and I could hardly continue eating.
I had to equalize the taste and wash those bad thoughts away with my dark beer.

If you're a Med Student and have 45CZK in your pocket and want to spend them om good apple pie, don't chose one with butter dough, it's going to twist your guts. Yuck...

Two weeks of Muscles finally over

Today I can lean back and enjoy the result of my hard labour.
Studying for the muscle test have been a top priority for the last two weeks and it have pretty much postponed everything else such as buying groceries, working out, going out, cleaning as well as staying sane.
Looking into the fridge was rather depressing and living off white bread, defrosted lunch packages, egg and coffee have filled me with a crave for proper food.
In general it's not an overstatement to say that I've been studying for at least five to six hours a day after school.
I've even sacrificed lessons in Czech and lectures of biophysics to be able to participate in dissections.

The first week we pretty much broke down all the muscles of the upper limb into compartments of function, innervation and position.
We knew that the test was going to cover both the upper and the lower limb so what I did was to first focus on the upper limb and for the last week spend time on the lower.
This schedule was rather disturbed because it took me more time than I'd anticipated to cover the upper part.
The hand was originally the big bitch in the drama but later on it turned out that the forearm was a lot more complex than I'd imagine it to be and pretty much overtook that title.
The theory of muscles is massive. The upper extremity contains approximately 50 muscles and the lower almost as many. Remember that every muscle have at least 4 parameters (origin, insertion, function and innervation), big muscles often have more than just four.
If you add this up it's going to be a rather big number but note that much of the information is the same for some muscles and you can usually group them in subcategories.

During this time my colleges frequently discussed whether the test was going to be oral or a slide test.
First of all I just have to say it again; making up theories regarding such matters are just time consuming and you better spend that precious energy on revision. (Those who're closest to me know what I mean because I've kept saying that every time a discussion like that started - sorry for that but you got to admit that we all over projected the whole thing a bit, still it's easy to be wise after the event...)

During the last week we confirmed that the test was going to be held orally on the actual specimens of the dissection department.
At first I thought of it as really bad news but after a while I just started to like it more and more. I spent a lot of hours in the open dissections just orientating myself. I joined up with my colleges Solveig and Yonathan and together we tried to prepare as good as we could.
It's really hard to have practice on the dissected specimens yourself since there's no answers to what you think you're looking at.
You pretty much have to guess your way and compare it to the atlases.

There is no simple way of learning this great amount of information and the only tip I can give is that repetition is the key.
I'm glad I've been spending almost 12 hours in dissection because not only did it help for the test but it will be very useful during the future dissections.

Yesterday, the day before the test, I didn't feel comfortable at all. I didn't feel prepared and I know I didn't have all the facts straight to 100% which of course is what you aim for.
Me, my roomies and our friends were invited to Nabeel, a third year student, who had offered to help us before the test.
He held the revision and went through all the structures and compartments of the muscles very thoroughly and I can honestly say that I wouldn't have passed with such a good grade without his help - due to the fact that he mentioned all these small details that I otherwise would have missed. I was also very lucky during my oral test because my questions were on all these small details which I had fresh in my head from the night before.

Before the oral test we had to draw cross section schemes of the limbs, once again divided into three groups. Each group had different tasks and my cross sections turned out to be sections of the foot and the upper arm.
We got twenty minutes to complete these drawings and those minutes sure just flew by. My drawings turned out to really good and I was very satisfied it and left for the dissections with relief.

Tomorrow I'll also get the result from last weeks Histology test but today I'll just let my mind off the studies for once and go get a celebrating beer at the Pivovarsky Dûm with Solveig and Yonathan.

That's all for now, cheers!

Sneaking into Dissections

Histology was cancelled yesterday due to the Czech holiday celebration but our fantastic histology professor MUDr. Becker booked us a complementary lecture today to make up for it.
We went through the connective tissues and were introduced to a couple of new tissue specimen slides which was good, even thou we couldn't examine them ourselves due to the lack of microscopes in the temporary room.

The test our group's having next week is going to cover the basic techniques of histology, histochemistry as well as epithelial tissues. The facts about epithelial tissue is not a lot deeper than of the knowledge I enquired at the PreMed but I'm still going to expect a hard test.
The good thing about Becker is that he seems very straight forward and gives us clear directions of what to study. It kind of reminds me of some of the tutors at the medical centre of the military, which I really like.

After the lecture me and two of my colleagues and friends, Solveig and Basu, ended up at the benches next to the steep stairs behind the Institute of Pathology (the stairs are supposed to be a "short-cut" to the upper campus but honestly they're just leg killers, especially with a bag full of books).
We sat down in the lovely autumn weather to revise some anatomy.
I've been breaking down the anatomy of the muscles pretty good by now and are halfway through the superior limb.
In the end thou, this is what we've to know, and a bit more to it:

You get a mentally exhausted just by looking at this atlas page but don't worry mates, there's more pages explaining it all in detail.

I've been practising some muscle insertion by drawing them all over the bones. Drawing is a lot of fun, haven't done that since high school, and I find first studying the atlas thoroughly and then label the parts while drawing to be a very good way of learning.

My friend and colleague Dimitris from my group had a really nice booklet from his previous education back in Boston. It's summarizing the muscles and it's different fact in a very good way but since I don't have the booklet myself I thought that I'd still use the idea and started working on this table:

It's a good way to quickly practising the different muscles and there origin, insertion, function and innervation.
I have to finish it by tomorrow because tomorrow we're going to have a study session where we'll test each others knowledge.

Due to the fact that we have a lot of things to do until next week I might skip the Halloween celebration completely. It's such a hassle getting a proper costume and I bet I'll just feel like it's a waste of revising time, after all, scoring high on the test is more important at the moment - at least that's how I feel.

So back to the original story about sneaking into dissections.
After our short study break by the stairs we went down to the anatomy building because we had been informed that open dissections would be held between 1 and 3 pm. Open dissection basically means that you can go to the dissection rooms and study the specimens by yourself.
So, we went to the locker room and changed into lab coats and slippers and went in to the big dissection room. It was all empty, but we didn't think about that since we were just eager to start. We began to uncover the plastic covering the limbs, found a good sample and began orientating ourselves - labelling muscles, nerves and tendons.
Two persons, obviously responsible for the dissections, were running around with a trolley, collecting specimens but we didn't mind them, all of us focused on our practising. All of a sudden they swished by with the trolley and picked up our specimen. They said that they were closing down which surprised us since the clock wasn't 3 pm yet.
We had to pick up our things and leave and then we realised that we were there the wrong time. Obviously there was some kind of misunderstanding - we didn't mind that, we got to practice for forty minutes, and neither did the persons working there - win win situation.

Next week we'll be on time thou, even if it means that it's going to be crowded with students - you don't want to miss an opportunity to practice outside the books on the real thing.

Now I'll have to hit the gym, "gotta stay FTD"...

Next phase

We pretty much entered the next phase of the semester today - and the anxiety that followed was the proof.

The anatomy test went down rather quickly, approx. 35 power point slides with pictures covering ligaments and joint compartments of the superior and inferior extremities. To twist it up a bit our teacher added the regular scheme drawing of either a cross-section of the knee or the hip joint, depending on the group you were placed in.
I got the hip-joint which I knew fairly well and made a quick scheme. I would have preferred the knee joint thou since it was my lecture presentation subject and would probably have nailed it.
After the test I felt pretty good about myself until my friend Paymon started to discuss the questions with me. Then I felt the complete opposite (you know how it usually goes after a test).
I know I missed some bits and pieces here and there and I just hope I'll still get an acceptable grade.

After the test we went on to the dissection rooms and got our first view of a bigger piece of the real thing. The room smelled a bit of formalin, the chemical used to preserve the tissues, but when the sheets covering the limbs were removed the odour just got stronger. Since this wasn't the first time encountering the smell, my obviously very selective nose pretty much overlooked the smell and I could focus at the introduction of the muscles of the superior limb.
Since I can't post any photos of our procedure I'll just randomly link to something similar and let someone else get the blame.

(!)Gore alert(!) on the following google links:
Photo of shoulder girdle dissection #1, joint capsule
Photo of shoulder girdle dissection #2, muscles and innervation
Photo of inferior limb and abdomen dissection

The statement of the day is that the muscles (name, innervation, insertion and function) are rather complex anatomies to conquer. They are all shown pretty good in this overview.
The forearm contains loads and once again loads of parts mentioned in brackets above. For every muscle we need to know these different parameters as wells as being able to label them in a dissected arm.
My plan is to once again, break it down to bits and pieces, study different atlases, then sketch and repeat.
A good thing is that the dissection rooms are going to be open for self studies during the weeks so we'll get a chance to repeat on the specimens.

The next week is going to be hectic and I have to increase my time studying. I got two weeks to learn the muscles of both the superior and inferior limb, a histology test covering the histological techniques, staining and both epithelial and connective tissue as well as biophysics labs and lectures that I still keep procrastinating.
I'm growing the fear that I'll all pile up in the end and I'd like to prevent that by being one step ahead. It's damn hard thou due to the high pace, hence the worries, the increase in studying and the increase in coffee drinking.

Tomorrow is a day off since there's a holiday going on in Czech Republic and since I'm always off on Fridays my weekend begins tonight. Nabeel, a really nice guy from third year, asked my roomies out for a beer and I took some time off to tag along. So did Fredrik and Christian and we had a nice chat over a beer and a XXL drink in a crowded, smoky, basement pub called the Black Sheep.
It was a great start of the weekend, and since Halloween is around the corner it's just going to be better.
To smash that party mood up I'll still have to study a lot, so tomorrow is dedicated for studying and a major workout.

Until next post, have a good one - oh yeah got to end it with another fancy quote - this time in Latin I think (since I got pretty good hang of the Latin grammar today...)

"Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem" - Horace

I did well, what a relief

Just came home after a long day, Wednesdays are always busy from 8am until 4pm, and guess what? I did well on the anatomy test.

Our professor divided us into two groups, A and B, and wrote subjects for each group on the black board. The subjects were; scheme of bone blood supply (group A) and scheme of bone ossification and growth (group B). Also, both groups had to do a scheme of the hand.
While we were focused on drawing our schemes our tutor and his assistant went around quizzing us on the bones.
I got the ulna, placed it and told her about its features. When she understood that I knew it she moved on to the humerus, clavicle and finished off with the distinguishing of the carpal bones.
I got an A and went on with my schemes and it wasn't such a big hassle as I'd imagined it to be. Now I know how to study for the test next week.

We handed in the schemes and when I get it back next week I'll post it here for anyone that's interested.

The lesson went on with ligament studies. We took our lab coats on since this was the first time we had seen preserved tissue - which equals chemicals and messy tissue. Each group got a pair of shoulder joints, completely preserved with bone, tissue, ligament and muscle tendons. I'd love to post a descriptive image but since that interfere with ethics I'll Google you something similar instead: how about a link to a shoulder dissection picture?
And yes, before you click, I got to warn sensitive persons.
[Picture 1 - Shoulder Joint] [Picture 2 - Glenohumeral Joint Specified]

The experience of seeing, holding and smelling dissected specimens wasn't as gooey and disgusting as I'd first imagined. Sure the formaldehyde mixture, the preserving fluid, didn't smell like raspberries but I think I'll get used to it. I mean the fish factory back home smell a lot worse.
Having a whole cadaver later on in the dissections with all the tissues intact might be a complete different experience though - but that will have to wait for the time being.

I wish my colleges in the parallel groups good luck for their test tomorrow, hope you'll do great guys!

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would accomplish much must sacrifice much...

- James Allen (1855-1942)