Friday, September 22, 2006

Did we mess up? Our cadaver's heart is on the RIGHT...

"Now that we've gotten past the superficial muscles, you're going to start seeing differences from one cadaver to the next," said our anatomy prof.

Boy was he right!!

Some of the crazy / cool stuff we've seen already:

  • Situs inversus with dextrocardia

This is a rare condition in which the person's heart was on the RIGHT hand side of their body, and all of their internal organs were reversed! (Liver on the left, spleen on the right, etc.) You gotta see it to believe it. Our anatomy profs hadn't seen this one in person before and they were so excited they were freaking out.

  • Pulmonary Atrophy

One of the cadavers had a left lung that was very tiny, and the right lung was MASSIVE

  • Pacemakers

Right after cutting back the skin of the chest, a few of the cadavers had stainless steel pacemaker implants

  • Sutured sternum

Those individuals who had cardiac surgery have their sternum sliced down the middle; following the surgery, the surgeon uses stainless steel sutures to bring the sternum halves back together.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm jealous. Coolest thing I saw was an IVC on the left and a celiac plexus with too many branches. You're a lucky guy.

CharleyBrowne said...

what would be REALLY interesting is seeing how messed up the abdomen must be in that cadaver!

Motherhood for the Weak said...

My girlfriend (living) has this. At least for the heart. It's on the right and turned. Apparently it's a birth defect. I don't think it affects her other organs, although maybe no one ever checked. They didn't discover it until her 20s and even then, they first assumed the x-ray labelling was incorrect.

I always wonder if she should wear an ID bracelet. If she were to ever need a defibrillator, wouldn't they need to know where her heart was?

M