Gross Anatomy: A Cadaver's Tale

M.D. Warren Stucki

Description

For Keith Furness, it has been a long and difficult road, but he is finally fulfilling a lifelong dream: He is a freshman in medical school, and his first class of the morning is gross anatomy. Eddie (the cadaver), on the other hand, is definitely not so thrilled to be in attendance. Hovering above his lifeless body, he wonders, sometimes bitterly, why he signed up for this and why he still tarries here in the gross anatomy lab. And though he freely admits he can't feel a thing, he grimaces with each new cut, mutilation, and/or indignity to his once beautiful body. Officially, the medical examiner's office has ruled Eddie's death a suicide, but Eddie knows it differently! And obviously, his killer is still at large. Coincidently, as a teenager, Keith had an older brother suffering with a drug problem, who ran away, allegedly became homeless, and eventually vanished. Neither Keith nor his father has heard from him in years.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647505110
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Gross Anatomy: A Cadaver’s Tale
Warren Stucki, M.D.
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-11-30
Gross Anatomy: A Cadaver’s Tale About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgment Chapter One EDDIE Chapter Two KEITH Chapter Three EDDIE Chapter Four KEITH Chapter Five EDDIE Chapter Six KEITH Chapter Seven EDDIE Chapter Eight KEITH Chapter Nine EDDIE Chapter Ten KEITH Chapter Eleven EDDIE Chapter Twelve KEITH Chapter Thirteen EDDIE Chapter Fourteen KEITH Chapter Fifteen EDDIE Chapter Sixteen KEITH Chapter Seventeen EDDIE Chapter Eighteen KEITH Chapter Nineteen KEITH Epilogue EDDIE
About the Author
As a graduate of The University of Utah School of Medicine, Doctor Stucki practiced urology in St. George, Utah, for over thirty years. During that time, he served as chief of surgery, chief of staff and as a member of the hospital governing board. Though working full-time, he also managed to pen and publish six novels:  Boy’s Pond, Hunting for Hippocrates, Sagebrush Sedition, Hemorrhage, Mountain Mayhem  and  The Reluctant Carnivore . Presently, he resides on a small horse ranch in southern Utah with his wife, his horses, and two Labrador retrievers.
Dedication
For my wife, Linda, who puts up with my moods and is always my first line of defense against the omnipresent hordes of grammatical mistakes.
Copyright Information ©
Warren Stucki, M.D. (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information
Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Stucki, M.D. Warren
Gross Anatomy: A Cadaver’s Tale
ISBN 9781647505103 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781647505097 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781647505110 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020920303
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
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Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Diane and Rodger Bland for their encouragement and assistance with proofreading. A nod to Nick Adams who also helped with proofreading and plot suggestions. Also, I would like to express my appreciation to Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins for granting me the rights to include excerpts from their excellent book,  Grant’s Dissector.
Chapter One

EDDIE
YOUR FIRST PATIENT— The opportunity to dissect a human body is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The cadaver that you will use for dissection was donated by a person who wished to make a contribution to your education as a physician. It is not possible to put into words the emotions experienced by that individual as he or she made the decision to become a body donor. It goes without saying, the gift the donor has made is invaluable, and can only be repaid by the proper care and use of the cadaver. The cadaver must be treated with the same respect and dignity usually reserved for the living patient. For you, the student, this is a solemn trust.
Donate your body to science, huh?
Ha! What a laugh. What does that phrase even mean? Is it meant as some kind of an inside joke? If so, I fail to see the humor.
No, no, more than likely it is not meant as comedy, but used as some kind of a sneaky smokescreen, or a seductive sugarcoating. A sweet, but disingenuous euphemism.
Or perhaps, it simply represents a deflection, a seemingly benign diversion, a harmless white lie.
But on the other hand, could it possibly be more calculated—a staged and choreographed sales and marketing ploy? A slick Madison Avenue production?
Or conceivably, it is even more sinister, designed to intentionally defraud or scam the naïve and trusting public. A sly bait-and-switch scheme.
Or—well, I’ll just blurt it out. Could it possibly be a deliberate bald-faced lie?
For me, this personal fleecing began a few years ago when I read an article in the Salt Lake Tribune about body donation in the great state of Utah. The reporter made it sound gallant, even a patriotic thing to do, and equivalent to organ donations for surgical transplantation. I don’t remember the entire article word for word, but I do remember part of a quote from the director of the University of Utah Body Donor Program. And I paraphrase : “Donors are vital to medical advancements—everything from the developing new surgeries and procedures to the creation of artificial organs and limbs.”
That sounded okay to me, maybe even a bit noble, a sensation I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Without giving it enough thought, I signed up, just as I had previously registered with South Salt Lake Plasma Center to donate blood and the Murray Infertility Center to donate semen for their commercial sperm bank. Or comparable to when I enrolled as an organ donor by just checking a box when I applied for my Utah driver’s license.
To be honest, at that time of my life, I would have donated to anything that reimbursed me in U.S. greenbacks. Blood and semen paid pretty well, but unfortunately, I’ve yet to receive a dime for donating my entire body for this so-called advancement of science . Not an Abe Lincoln penny! And at the time, I desperately needed the money. What an all-American rip-off!
Anyway, I’m sorry; I apologize. It seems my emotions get the best of me and I digress. Please, let’s move on.
Donate your body to science, huh? Well, I don’t see much sciencing going on down there, and nobody seems to be doing any innovating either. I see no one researching a novel cure for cancer, or developing a revolutionary new surgical technique, or bioengineering a marvelous new artificial organ. What I do see looks more like an amateur hour auditions at the community playhouse, or improv at the local comedy club. And without question, I feel no overwhelming, or even a trace of gratitude for my ultimate gift, and no heartfelt respect, none, for my once beautiful body.
Okay, okay, I’ll admit to being a little overdramatic. And my reason for donating may have been a little less than altruistic, and might not have qualified as selfless or noble either. Perhaps, it could even be construed as selfish and/or self-serving. And it is entirely conceivable I was a bit hasty, not giving it enough thought, or asking the right questions. But in my defense, when things started going bad, I had to do something and do it fast. When you are losing badly at the game of life, you hedge your bets. That’s what I did; you would have too.
Now, understandably, I am having second thoughts—donor’s remorse, maybe even feeling a little sorry for myself. I’m beginning to think this impulsivity represents yet another blunder on my part. Another miscalculation, one of many that has made up the checkered fabric of my life.
Well, enough of the poor-me routine, let’s get back to the present. Below, I see at they are drawing lots to see who gets me and the other lifeless stiffs. A tacky game of chance. And apparently, I get no choice in the matter.
But I will say this much, if those super-hormonal kids down there represent serious medical science, then count me out.
That, of course, is a figure of speech. There is absolutely no way to count me out, or for me to leave, or to go back and change history, or alter the course of my life. Regardless of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (suggesting time can be bent by gravity), it appears, for better or worse, probably for worse, that celestial time flows only in one direction. As a consequence, it seems I am stuck here. However, let’s be clear about this much; they may be happy with me, the best-preserved and youngest cadaver in the lab, but I am certainly not happy with them.
You may ask, isn’t it a little premature to judge those kids, to condemn, to criticize? You might also suggest that at the very minimum, I give them a chance.
Well, let me say this. I do know a little something about ineptitude—at least enough to recognize incompetence when I see it. And after working in the tourism and hospitality sector for most of my life, I’m a pretty good judge of character—enough to know these kids will never amount to much.
Okay, okay, that’s enough of my personal venting, this—this—what do you call it? Oh, yeah, this stream of consciousness. Perhaps, we should get right to my story and let you, the reader, decide.
Chapter Two

KEITH
GROSS ANATOMY— As opposed to histology, gross anatomy is the study of human structures that can be seen at the macroscopic level, visualized with the naked ey e. Histology, on the other hand, is the microscopic study of tissues. For medical students, the dissecting of the human body is a centuries-old rite of passage and for many, it will be their first time seeing a dead body. The anatomy lab is where future surgeons will make their first cut with a scalpel, thankfully without the pressure of life and/or death hanging in the balance. It is also where the ability to visualize organs and study their spatial and functional relationships will be honed. Lastly, it is the place where medical students begin, for better and for worse, thei