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" On my first day of medical school, like centuries of student doctors before me, I nervously stood over a cadaver\u2014an anonymous, elderly woman who had donated her body to be cut open and cut apart. That day was six years ago. I was a poet and former English teacher in the midst of a major career shift. And like almost everyone my age (late 20s), I had lost relatives dear to me. Every time I unzipped my cadaver&amp;#039;s body bag, I would think, This used to be a person. Past tense.  But then, perhaps initially to steel myself to the task at hand, I came to believe what my kind stranger clearly knew \u2014 that the things we do to the dead have no effect on the people they once were. This may sound callous. But the realization opened rather than sealed my heart. I would treat my cadaver&amp;#039;s body with respect and care even as I dismantled it, and what I learned in doing so would become the foundation of my medical knowledge.  Now, as a resident physician, I&amp;#039;m sometimes asked to determine whether a patient is brain-dead. One of the most persuasive signs is that the patient no longer retracts from pain. Withdrawal is a primitive response \u2014 I jerk my hand away from a hot pan before I&amp;#039;ve consciously registered the burn; when she&amp;#039;s only a few hours old, my daughter has a drop of blood taken from her heel and, already, she draws her legs up and wails. When I slid my scalpel along my cadaver&amp;#039;s skin, I half expected her to cry out. It seems silly even to say it. Of course she did not. She remained utterly indifferent.  I think this is what people mean when they say that funerals are for the living. The poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch puts it wisely, if bluntly: &amp;quot;The dead don&amp;#039;t care.&amp;quot; And then, as if anticipating our dissent, he adds, &amp;quot;Which is not to say that the dead do not matter. They do. They do. Of course they do.&amp;quot; But in spite of their mattering, what we do to the dead \u2014 from dissecting their bodies to replacing their blood with embalming fluid and painting lipstick on their mouths \u2014 benefits us and us alone. So I was aware that my cadaver&amp;#039;s choice to educate a young doctor she would never know \u2014 even if it deprived her loved ones of a traditional mourning process \u2014 was an extraordinary act. It is perhaps best recognized in Thailand, where a medical student refers to her donor not as &amp;quot;cadaver&amp;quot; but as &amp;quot;great teacher.&amp;quot; Thai students sometimes bring their bodies flowers and greet them with traditional bows. I brought no bouquets to my great teacher, whom I named Eve (because her navel was inexplicably missing). But every time I listen to a patient&amp;#039;s heartbeat or feel for someone&amp;#039;s liver, the structures I picture are those of my generous stranger. I hope that I can be, in some small way, her gift made manifest. Christine Montross is the author of Body of Work. She lives and practices in Rhode Island. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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