Lafayette – The cadaver lies on a steel table in the center of the room, as students from the Alexander Dawson School smear Vicks ointment under their noses to ward off the formaldehyde stench.
The teenagers pull stools close to the table, straining to see the brown-gray, shriveled female body, whose face, along with her hands and feet, is gauze-wrapped to protect the person’s identity.
The dozen seniors enrolled in forensic science and biology classes at the private school will spend the next three hours in Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center’s anatomy lab in Lafayette.
For the first time, they’ll see – and in some cases hold – human body parts.
Barr Petersen, a fourth-year medical student, guides the students in the anatomy lesson, which starts with the brain and ends with the ankles.
“It’s really their only chance to do this without being in medical school,” said Linda Dunn, coordinator of emergency services and anatomy programs at Exempla Healthcare.
The Exempla hospital system started Colorado’s first private human-cadaver lab at Lutheran Medical Center in the 1970s.
Last year, it expanded the anatomy training program for nurses, paramedics, medical technicians and medical students to Good Samaritan, Dunn said.
The classes, the only ones in Colorado, are held six days a week year-round. Dunn estimates Exempla trains 3,000 health workers a year.
“Initial impressions?” Petersen asks the high schoolers.
“It looks less human than I expected,” one student says.
“The skin. It’s pretty dead-looking,” another says.
“It’s a woman, right?” asks another.
Petersen explains that the embalming fluid used to preserve the cadaver breaks down fat into a liquid that is drained from the body, exaggerating the skin’s cracks and wrinkles.
He then pulls the top half of the woman’s skull from under the gauze.
Human brains need protection, he explains, holding up the skull cap so the students can see inside.
Then Petersen shows the students the many layers that make up the protective covering for the brain. He points out lines that veins etched in the inside surface of the skull, which he passes around.
Next, the students get to handle the brain. Eyes wide, they poke at it with gloved hands.
Lexina Paddock, 18, who had stayed away from the table at first, decides this is not to be missed. She holds the brain and gently squeezes it.
“It was cool,” she said later.
“It’s a good experience,” said Amanda Wolfe, 18. “I mean, when are you going to have the chance to do something like this?”
Petersen works his way down to the heart, which he holds up to “oohs and aahs.” There’s a tiny cord and the metal disk of a pacemaker attached.
The students lean in to see.
“I’m really excited to hold the heart,” says Ryan Souva, 17. “Because I think that it would be really cool to say I held a human heart.”
Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at maustin@denverpost.com or 303-820-1242.
