SILENT MENTOR

You were laid out on the stainless-steel table: naked, stiff, and shrivelled. It was hard for me to see your body for the first time. I felt the gravity that accompanies with the grieve I had for you whose soul still remained on earth. Your eyes were shut, and your heart didn’t beat. The first day of my anatomy lab begins with a moment of silence in honour of you, our silent mentor.

An amorphous idea of you woven into the nights leading up to this August evening. And even now, after that I’ve met you, I was not sure who you were; neither did I know your age, race, or the cause of your death. Because you were an enigma, my mind occasionally strayed and I wondered about the sort of person you had been and the life you had.

As I recite the anatomy pledge, tears filled up my eyes. My face shield fogged up above the mask I was wearing. I can’t say that It was sadness that I felt, but rather an abstruse and inchoate empathy that I couldn’t quite understand.

You taught me more about medicine than the books that I’ve read. You taught me that behind every “body” lies a human being who was once someone’s father, son, grandmother, or friend. You taught me to never treat patients as tools or bodies to be cured, but as people who have their own stories. You taught me to embrace that quintessentially human desire to care for the dead. And somehow, I’ve learned more to care for the living. You reminded me that despite a distinct lack of life, I was still responsible for caring for a human who deserved to be treated with dignity and respect.

My experience with you, my silent mentor, taught me something that I hope to never forget as a doctor. Here’s to five years of Medical School and a lifetime of serving my fellow human beings.

And today, I wore my white coat in honour of the profession.