“My eyes…… my eyes sting.”
“My throat kind of hurts too.”
A burning pain in the eyes, throat, and nostrils.
While most first-year main course students were deeply frowning, only two people had different expressions.
Those two were Choi Moo-gyeol and Park Seok-hun.
Only they were not frowning at all.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s eyes were shining, as if this were finally the opportunity to practice the anatomy he had learned in theory class.
In his vision, the cold metallic steel dissection tables and the cadavers covered with white cloths on top came into view.
Beneath the white cloths, the outlines of those who had once been alive were fully revealed.
Forehead, nose, chest, pubic region, pelvis, knees, tips of the toes.
“I-it’s really a corpse made of a person…….”
While the classmate next to him swallowed dryly and tensed up.
Choi Moo-gyeol felt neither fear nor disgust.
He was simply curious.
In what form the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves he had memorized through hundreds of illustrations were entangled inside an actual human body.
What exactly remained in the brain after death.
Had the brain’s memories and signals all disappeared together as life was extinguished?
As Choi Moo-gyeol was thinking that and shifted his gaze, he saw the expression of Park Seok-hun at the next table.
‘What?’
Park Seok-hun’s expression was different from the other classmates.
Park Seok-hun’s moistly wet eyes were looking at the white cloth covering the cadaver, both corners of his mouth were gently raised, and his lips were slightly parted.
Choi Moo-gyeol thought.
‘What on earth is he thinking?’
It had been over ten years of just observing human expressions.
According to Choi Moo-gyeol’s database, Park Seok-hun’s expression indicated a state of being ‘moved.’
‘What is there to be moved by in front of a corpse? Why is he making that kind of expression?’
It was a reaction that seemed decidedly not normal.
Curious, Choi Moo-gyeol whispered.
“What are you thinking right now in front of the cadaver?”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah. You looked like you were thinking deeply about something.”
“Ah…… Doesn’t your heart ache when you look at this?”
“Your heart aches?”
‘What a strange guy. Though it’s a bit awkward for me to judge that.’
Choi Moo-gyeol thought that while looking at Park Seok-hun.
“The heart of donating one’s own body for the advancement of medicine is so noble. If it were me, I don’t think I could have donated my body even after death. Traditionally, burial culture is taken for granted.”
“…….”
It was not wrong, but to feel that kind of emotion first in the midst of formalin smell stabbing your eyes, nose, and mouth?
Choi Moo-gyeol was like that, but this classmate named Park Seok-hun was also certainly not an ordinary human.
If measured by MBTI, he was probably an extreme F.
At that moment.
Clank—.
A middle-aged man wearing a waterproof apron over a white gown entered the lab.
He was Professor Oh Jeong-ho of the anatomy department.
Rumble—.
Behind him, teaching assistants pushed carts in.
On the carts were scalpels, forceps, scissors, probes, clamps, and so on.
The teaching assistants skillfully placed the carts beside the dissection tables.
Professor Oh Jeong-ho said.
“Now, has everyone checked their seats?”
“Yes—.”
The professor continued.
“Now, these cadavers placed before you. These donors, when they were alive, made the difficult decision to have their bodies used for the advancement of medicine.”
The professor’s voice resonated lowly within the lab.
“So we must always not forget. Thanks to these donors, you can learn what you cannot learn from books alone.”
Choi Moo-gyeol glanced at Park Seok-hun’s expression. He was engraving the professor’s words in his heart more seriously than anyone.
“Now, so, this cadaver is the first patient you meet and your first teacher. Let us observe a moment of silence with grateful hearts.”
A short moment of silence followed.
‘First patient and first teacher.’
Choi Moo-gyeol also closed his eyes.
Park Seok-hun’s words that the donors made the choice to give their bodies to others for medical practice overlapped with the professor’s words.
He did not feel sadness.
But he could understand how rarely the choice to become a cadaver occurs, and how altruistic a decision it is.
Through one person’s death, dozens of students learn the human body.
Those students become doctors and treat thousands, tens of thousands of patients.
It was an efficient yet valuable choice. Though he did not quite understand being moved.
“Now, today let’s try dissecting the skin and fascia of the anterior thoracoabdominal region.”
Flutter—.
The teaching assistants removed the white cloths from the demonstration dissection table.
Male and female corpses.
There were elderly ones, and relatively young ones.
But one commonality was that the formalin-treated skin had discolored to a pale yellowish-brown.
The hands and feet looked dry and hard like wood drained of moisture, the eyes were closed, and the lips were parched.
It starkly showed what happens to a human body when death clings to it.
“Ugh.”
One medical student slightly covered his mouth, and it was visible that several classmates’ stomachs became uncomfortable following him.
But Choi Moo-gyeol and Park Seok-hun still had no change in expression even after witnessing the cadavers.
Professor Oh Jeong-ho, who had been carefully observing the two who stood out, soon picked up a scalpel.
“Now, so, remember that when holding a scalpel, you do not hold it like a pencil. You hold it lightly like this so you can cut only the desired area.”
It was a professor who said ‘now’ and ‘so’ exceptionally often.
“Then, we cut from the sternal notch to the xiphoid process. Watch closely.”
The professor took the scalpel and approached the demonstration cadaver.
The lab became quiet.
The flashing scalpel blade moved lightly.
Swish—.
Although no blood came from the cadaver, some medical students involuntarily flinched as they watched the scalpel split the dry skin.
It was that stimulating a scene.
The professor incised down to below the navel, then began a transverse incision along the clavicle and costal margin.
“After opening the skin, do not go deep immediately. First, you must confirm the layers of subcutaneous tissue and fascia. If you cut without properly seeing the structures, it becomes not dissection but destruction.”
The professor put down the scalpel and lifted the edge of the cut skin with forceps.
The subcutaneous fat layer beneath it was revealed.
Crunch.
The professor separated the layers with scissors, revealing the muscle layer beneath, and said.
“In actual surgery, a doctor who does not know which layer their scalpel is passing through will certainly cause an accident. Is there anyone among you who wants to become a surgeon?”
At the professor’s question, two or three people cautiously raised their hands.
Professor Oh Jeong-ho smirked and said.
“I don’t know why you’d volunteer for hardship, but if you really want to become a surgeon, even more so! You must know exactly where to cut and where to stop. A doctor performing surgery is no different from always walking a tightrope on that kind of boundary line.”
‘Walking a tightrope on the boundary line.’
Hearing those words, Choi Moo-gyeol recalled the neurosurgeon who had resected his frontal lobe in childhood.
That doctor must also have crossed that precarious boundary when operating on Choi Moo-gyeol.
A little more cutting and the frontal lobe would be completely ruined, a little less cutting and edema or hemorrhage could occur.
Between that narrow boundary, the doctor made the optimal judgment.
Because the neurosurgeon’s scalpel ultimately saved Choi Moo-gyeol.
‘I can do that well too, right?’
As Choi Moo-gyeol was imagining a life as a surgeon.
Professor Oh Jeong-ho said.
“Now, each group try the practice. Begin!”
The teaching assistants distributed dissection tools and anatomy textbooks.
“Who wants to go first?”
There were about six classmates per table.
When everyone was just fidgeting and hesitating, Choi Moo-gyeol stepped forward.
“I’ll try.”
A female student asked.
“Wow, aren’t you scared?”
“What is there to be scared of?”
“The face is so vivid. It feels like it’s looking at me.”
It was a well-preserved face.
“Life was cut off long ago.”
Choi Moo-gyeol covered the face with part of the white cloth that had covered the body.
“This way there’s no problem, right?”
“Mm…… still…….”
Choi Moo-gyeol paid no further attention and lightly held the scalpel as the professor had explained.
And he entered ‘cognitive focusing.’
His vision narrowed, his breathing stabilized, and his hand moved as precisely as desired.
Swoosh—.
It felt like sculpting, or like cutting meat.
As he adjusted the angles of his wrist and elbow and drew the blade as learned in theory class, only the epidermis and dermis layers opened.
The skin was far more fragile than expected.
To think that what protects the human body is such a thin and fragile hide.
Even a little force and the blade could cut another part.
For a first-year main course student, making a mistake would be natural.
But Choi Moo-gyeol’s scalpel was cutting exactly only the desired part.
A teaching assistant asked from beside him.
“Is this your first time?”
“Yes. It’s my first time.”
“How is your hand not trembling at all? Is it really your first time?”
“Where would I have had this kind of experience in advance?”
“I suppose that’s true.”
The teaching assistant said as if still unable to believe it.
“……But you’re applying just the right amount of pressure, and you really seem like someone who’s done this many times. Do you have experience cutting people?”
Choi Moo-gyeol awkwardly smiled at the teaching assistant’s joke.
“There’s no way.”
“It’s a joke. Hey, saying that while smiling with a strange expression really makes it seem like you have.”
“What do you mean, a strange expression.”
In any case, Choi Moo-gyeol’s scalpel advanced accurately without losing its way.
The skin flap opened while maintaining a consistent thickness.
There was no unnecessarily cut tissue, and no damaged structure.
The students in the same group held their breath and watched.
“Is it really your first time?”
“You’re too good…….”
The fascia covering the chest, the texture of the pectoralis major, and beneath it the diaphragm and abdominal muscles.
The knowledge that had been separately scattered in books began to be memorized three-dimensionally in his head.
Professor Oh Jeong-ho came to Choi Moo-gyeol’s table and said.
“You. Are you an aspiring surgeon?”
“Pardon?”
“You have a skill perfectly suited for surgery. Excellent.”
“Thank you for the compliment. But…….”
“Do you have a question?”
Choi Moo-gyeol asked as if he could not hold it in.
“When do we dissect the brain?”
“…….”
“…….”
Professor Oh Jeong-ho looked at Choi Moo-gyeol for a moment with an expression as if seeing a curious being.
‘Sometimes a lunatic crazy about the art of medicine itself does enter.’
Thinking he roughly understood what kind of character this was, he said this.
“It’s still far off, so wait.”
“Yes.”
“It seems you’re interested in brain surgery.”
“That’s right.”
“Work hard. Surgery is always short on good doctors.”
“Understood.”
Oh Jeong-ho shifted his gaze to the next table.
At that table, Park Seok-hun was calmly moving his scalpel.
If the next table’s Choi Moo-gyeol was a sharp and keen scalpel, this side’s Park Seok-hun was a stable and calm scalpel.
His scalpel was slow but composed, blunt but advancing without mistakes.
Oh Jeong-ho thought.
‘This year, quite a few prospective doctors with good hands have entered.’
* * *
