First Cut

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NOV 3, 1997

Carter, a professor of literature and humanities at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., always wanted to be a physician but never took the step of applying to medical school. Instead, during a sabbatical, he sat in on a human anatomy course for first-year medical students at Emory University and chronicled what students go through, both emotionally and physically, as they dissect cadavers over the course of the 16-week semester. Coupled with this story is that of Carter's search for closure with his father's death, and his discovery of what became of his body after it was donated to a medical school. The personal narrative, particularly in three essays written in lieu of the exams taken by the students throughout the semester, is overwritten ("What is this voyage within, with all its sensuous glory?") and is less successful than Carter's descriptions of how students come to grips with the cadavers. While this particular anatomy course seems ideal, comprised of thoughtful, creative lectures delivered by devoted professors to adoring and eager students, Carter's frequent praise of the students and his musings on the wonderful physicians they are likely to become wears thin. In spite of his waxing, however, Carter provides insight into a critical aspect of medical training, and an unusually intimate, even arresting, view of the bodies we have and the bodies we will become.