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Lecture Lunch

1/14/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
My cohort is in the middle of a four-part class series called Pathology. It's exciting and interesting if you're into pictures of malformed tissues and details of aberrant cytokine patterns.

We have such packed schedules that I often try to eat lunch during Pathology lecture. Every time, though, I'm rudely reminded that the projected images can be disturbing. They're gross--sometimes stomach-wrenching gross--until I remember that these are people's bodies, and then, actually, it's heart-wrenching and sad.

I bring it up because this is an important, and I think affirming, distinction. It is the difference between thinking of disease states as being:

• pathology--the body doing something wrong, versus

• adaptive physiology--the body doing the best it can considering its setbacks and resources.

So when we see a slide of something gross like lung hepatization or aortic atherosclerosis, we're really just viewing the aftermath of the body's heart-wrenching struggle to make do. And heart-wrenching isn't more pleasant than stomach-wrenching, but at least I can eat.

1 Comment
Jeanne Williamson link
1/27/2013 08:06:04 am

This post is really good, sad, well written, interestingly written, made my heart break, and curiously, made me realize that the heartbreak of a medical problem is really, as you point out, the body trying to succeed any way possible. It's so interesting to combine medical terms with an obsession for delicious food. I can imagine how important it is in grim classes to have a bit of sunshine come through in the form of a delicious hand pie or something similar.

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    Lorraine Ferron is a medical student, writer, and food lover. Read more about her at SweetAllium's About page.

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