Human Variation...siiiiiiiiigh

So today we started our dissection of the thigh. It was wholly annoying. We had to first remove the skin and fascia (and other assorted nightmare fodder) from the anterior surface of the leg. After that, we had to clean out everything, find the femoral artery, vein, and nerve and clean out those structures. I accidentally sliced right through our great saphenous vein and became extremely frustrated at that point. It didn't help that one of my lab-mates (that is incapable of pronouncing any structure's name correctly) decided it was his job to act like an ass to me about everything I got frustrated about. In addition, I would tell him about my frustrations and he would repeat them back to me two minutes later and ask me why I hadn't fixed it yet. By the end of the day, I was wholly peeved and exhausted.

The one bright point of dissection today was Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams is one of my faculty instructors for Anatomy and Cell Biology. My lab group promised her baked goods during the first lab so I brought her some Amish friendship bread that my roommate made. It was delectable, and now, she will come at the drop of a hat if I can't find a structure. During orientation though, she told me that at some point, we would get frustrated because we wouldn't be able to find a structure, and that is when she would just pull me aside, pat me on the back and say "Human Variation Frank, Human Variation." Well at the end of the lab today, Dr. Williams was trying to find our medial circumflex femoral artery and couldn't locate it no matter where she searched. In the end we just had to assume that it came from a common trunk with the lateral circumflex femoral artery. "I'm really unsatisfied with that conclusion, but I just can't find it on this body," said Dr. Williams. I turned to her, patted her on the back and said, "Human Variation Dr. William, Human Variation." She looked at me and said, "Well, that came back to bite me in the butt."

Even the frustrating days have highlights. lol