She opened her eyes and saw him. His glassy, unblinking eyes stared back at her, the same green that she remembered. She blinked a few times in disbelief. Beads of sweat started to form on her forehead. The weight of her ‘virtual reality’ or VR goggles suddenly became too much and she lifted them off her head. She quickly glanced around at the other students. She knew this culminating exam was meant to push boundaries, and she had heard that Dr. McMurray had a reputation for challenging students to face ethical dilemmas. However, this seemed too far. Instead of similarly confused students, she saw a sea of stoic med-school bound hopefuls. All were still tacitly poised, facing the front of the lecture hall. They were gripping the pieces of plastic that were supposed to emulate surgical scalpels, probably thinking over the dissection protocol in meticulous detail.
They had been studying this protocol for weeks, practicing on cats and watching videos of medical students explore the confines of the human thoracic cavity. They had sat in the lecture hall, all united by the common human body they were viewing through their goggles and the voice of Dr. McMurray carefully directing the symphony of scalpels that slid across cardiac valves like bows on strings. Now they finally had a chance to experience the mystery of the human body for themselves, only this time they were being graded on it. She tried to forget the pressure that inherently comes with being graded as she remembered her father telling her that in the past, pre-medical students only had the opportunity to take classes that involved the basics of biomedical knowledge. Never did they have the chance to actually experience the decisions and roles that doctors would be faced with in real world situations. Since the induction of virtual reality experiences into their curriculum, students in upper level course work had the opportunity to perform simulated dissections on human donors. Dr. McMurray emphasized that the software used to create the simulation implemented scanned images of actual cadavers all integrated together to simulate a live-action dissection. Even though technically they wouldn’t be making real incisions into cadavers, the virtual cadavers they were seeing through their VR goggles, had actually existed at one point in time. A combination of real doctors and computer scientists had painstakingly documented the external characteristics of the bodies as well as facial features and the intricacies of each thoracic cavity in order for them to more accurately experience human anatomy.
“Haven, put your VR goggles back on or you will be disqualified from the exam.” “But Dr. McMurray, I believe something is wrong with my simulation.” “There shouldn’t be. I double checked all of the exam programs this morning.”
With this, she concluded that Dr. McMurray either did not know what was going on behind her lenses or he did know and didn’t want her to see the simulated motions of the other students. Reluctantly she slid the goggles back over her eyes and opened them again to the same scene, one in which she thought she would never be confronted with again. His hands looked cold and stiff. His unruly crop of hair had been shaved to stubble. He wore a wan expression she had seen only once before, while standing in a disinfected hospital room surrounded by overtly sympathetic relatives.
Maybe this was some sort of weird, unethical, ethical test. Coupled with the study of human anatomy for the past year, Dr. McMurray lectured extensively on the ethics and moral practices of healthcare. This final simulation was supposed to draw on themes from the course and help the students decide if medical school really was the right path for them, a true ‘pre-med’ course. Could she in good conscience continue with the simulation? Was she supposed to stand her ground and inform Dr. McMurray that she couldn’t continue with the exam? If this was an ethical test, then why weren’t the other students reacting in a similar way? They had all looked so calm. In a room full of pre-med students confronted with an unclear problem, some one was bound to ask a clarifying question.
No, she concluded. Logic was telling her this couldn’t be a moral test.
This was another kind of test, one that she had failed many times before. Tears began to mix with the beads of perspiration to create a hazy film on the inside of her goggles. Her mind slowly clouded over and she started to imagine what it would be like to just walk out of the lecture hall, jump into her car and drive away. Not this time, she thought. This time would be different. She wouldn’t let the past control her decisions or color her experiences. It would forever be a part of her, but it wouldn’t define her.
She shut her eyes, summoning every ounce of energy, willing the face before her to change. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a flash of chocolate brown surrounding foreign irises. Another blink though, and the green ones returned. She was running out of time. She took a deep breath, clenched her fist around the handle of the scalpel and sliced into the chest of her father.
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Kaley Parchinski is a 4th year BME student interested in public health and one day owning a sustainable sheep farm in Greenland. Her favorite summer reading assignment was ‘1984’ and her least favorite was ‘Wuthering Heights’. You can catch her most days at Highland Bakery with a small, black coffee in hand, if you’re interesting in talking about any of the aforementioned. |
