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t m c » p u l s e | a p r i l 2 0 1 7 28 28 Silent Professors Individuals who willed their bodies to science live on through the medical students they teach O ne of the rooms in the gross anatomy lab at Baylor College of Medicine houses 24 steel tanks. There, 24 "silent professors" await their class. Last August, first-year medical students stepped into this cold, sterile room for the first time, the smell of formaldehyde embalming fluid lingering in the air. Entering this space is a rite of passage for medical students. It marks the beginning of the most important part of their training and, for many, their very first encounter with death. "Even though we hadn't filed into the room yet, I remember this sensation of thinking the room already felt very full because you could sense the aura," recalled Sarah McGriff, a first-year medical student at Baylor. "Even though I hadn't opened the tank yet, there were 24 people in this room already. There was that weight and sense of … aura. There are people in here, people who have had lives and things that happened before us that we can't possi- bly know of." The bodies are donated through the school's Willed Body Program, which oversees requests from individuals who wish to contribute their bodies to science. Since its inception in the 1940s, the program has received more than 11,000 donor bequests, averaging 100 donations each year for the sole purpose of helping educate future doctors, prosthetics and orthotics clinicians, nurse anesthe- tists, physician assistants and other allied health professionals. Throughout their 30-week anatomy training, medical students attend lectures, memorize key terms and spend Tuesday mornings in the lab, where they use scalpels, forceps, probes and scissors to pick apart the intricate anatomical structure of the human body. Each lab starts with a "Kretzer moment," an homage to the late Francis Kretzer, M.D., a beloved Baylor educator who instilled in his stu- dents a deep appreciation and respect for the donors. Dissecting bodies can be an overwhelming expe- rience that requires a certain level of desensitization and emotional detachment. But during the Kretzer moments, one student from the lab recoups a little bit of that humanity by reading a poem to thank and commemorate the donors for their generous service. "Our donor housed a person, housed a soul." McGriff said. "I became so attached to that." Meeting face-to-fascia In the gross anatomy lab, donors are more than the students' silent professors. They are the students' first patients. Their identities—names, ages and personal histories—are withheld from students, in order to protect their privacy. By the time the donors reach the gross anatomy lab, they have been assigned a serial number and a group of students. McGriff's donor was an older female, most likely in her 60s or 70s, who died of breast cancer. After McGriff and her team peeled back the towels that covered the body, they discovered that the donor was heavier set and average height, with a scar run- ning down her abdomen from a previous surgical procedure. Her wrinkled skin had turned a greyish hue, with the slightest hint of purple and green, from the chemicals in the embalming fluid, but her nails still bore a pop of pink nail polish. The stubble on her head, shaven from the cadaver preparation process, revealed vestiges of silver hair. B y S h a n l e y C h i e n When I made that first incision, I was being so careful, not wanting to cut any deeper … I didn't want to hurt her, almost. I didn't expect that to be as difficult as that was. — SARAH McGRIFF First-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine Sarah McGriff, right, a first-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine, lights a candle during a ceremony to honor donors to the Willed Body Program.