Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab (Hardcover)

by Christine Montross (Author) "The syllabus says, "Week One-5 P.M. Pick up bone boxes..." (more)
Key Phrases: anatomy lab, anatomical theater, human dissection, Higgins Lake, Murder Act, Royal College of Surgeons (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Though it never goes for the gross-out effect, this memoir is not for the squeamish. "You begin to learn to heal the living by dismantling the dead," says Montross, and though her recollections encompass all of her medical training, the narrative backbone of the story is her semester-long dissection of a human cadaver, from opening up the ribcage to removing the brain from the skull. Montross was a poet and writing teacher before she decided to become a doctor, and she peppers her account of the dismantling of her cadaver, Eve—so named because she has no belly button—with arresting imagery: to test the heart's semilunar valves ("little half-moons that work passively and without musculature"), she and another student take the organ to a sink and run tap water through it. Performing her own dissection leads Montross to explore the history of studying anatomy through corpses, which brings tantalizing detours to medieval Italian universities and saints' shrines. But she also recounts her earliest encounters with living patients, such as a heart-wrenching consultation with a man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, who can communicate only by blinking. Her thoughtful meditations on balancing clinical detachment and emotional engagement will easily find a spot on the shortlist of great med school literature. (June 25)
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Review
How lucky we are that a poet decided to become a physician. Although all physicians share a personal history of countless hours in the human anatomy lab, only a rare few, I suspect, would be able to so deftly illuminate this transforming and peculiar experience. Montross is a master of detail, so much so that I was shocked to find myself hovering over my own cadaver in medical school again, holding a scalpel as if for the first time. -- Katrina Firlik, MD, Neurosurgeon and author of Another Day in the Frontal Lobe

The physician, like the sculptor, approaches the human body with reverence and admiration. Carried a little further, it becomes worship. In Body of Work, an unflinching memoirist conveys the process, both emotional and intellectual, by which human anatomy is mastered by the doctor-to-be. It should be read by anyone with aspirations for a life in medicine. -- Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons, The Doctor Stories and Letters to a Young Doctor

This is a book about crossing the bar. The anatomies discussed here are diverse and gripping, and remind me of the essays of Richard Selzer, which is a high compliment indeed. -- Edward Hoagland, author of Compass Points

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; 1 edition (June 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594201250
• ISBN-13: 978-1594201257
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #293,135 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A physician without knowledge of anatomy is not a physician, so we need to know what "anatomy" is..., July 2, 2007

By	Robert Schmidt (Honolulu, HI & Logan, UT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab, by Dr. Christine Montross, jumps out as something entirely predictable... what you would get if you crossed writers Terry Tempest Williams (Refuge) and Atul Gawande (Complications).

In other words, Montross writes with knowledge and determination, passion and persuasion, connection and compassion.

During her first year in medical school, her most important dissection partner was a deceased woman she named Eve. Whatever Eve did in life, in death she shaped Montross forever. Montross marveled at Eve's lack of a belly button, the bone dust Montross inhaled, the wonder of Eve's gift of herself. Eve morphed into a totally dissected person, and to the end, Montross would always consider her a person, not a thing, and not an abstraction.

This experience, along with vignettes from her rotations in medical school, are shared throughout the book. But Montross goes beyond that, delving into the history of anatomy, of human dissection, and of our linkage of what remains after we die with our spiritual connections. There's a reason saints were delivered in many pieces to places of worship, that medical students resorted to grave robbery, and that Thai medical students respect their dissection experiences throughout their career.

Montross weaves her anatomy experiences with her own life and relationship. There is a sensitivity here that makes you want to choose her as your own physician. By golly, if I am brain dead, I want Dr. Montross to check my pain reflexes! Finally, there are a number of books about that first year experience in medical school, and they all share the spirit of discovery in anatomy. This one goes where others have not, and reflects Montross's background as a teacher of English and a poet... observations of anatomy through the MFA lens.

This is a great book to give that person who yearns to follow her into the healing professions.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars memories, July 20, 2007

By	James S. Wicoff (san antonio texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just finished this book. Had to stop several times because of memories of my medical school and residency years. Cried some, laughed some and nodded my head often. What I liked was that this was not simply a memoir , but an intriguing look at medical history and practices in other countries. I am a child psychiatrist and part time poet, so I identified on many levels. I was the reader at our table-2 prospective surgeons took over the dissection. The emotions of becoming a doctor are wonderfully described and I will recommend it to fellow physicians and prospective ones alike. Beautifully done.
Jim Wicoff m.d.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Medical Humanity Even At The Dissection Table, August 5, 2007

By	Robert A. Warren (Santa Fe, New Mexico USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A first-year medical student remembers with clarity and thoughtfulness one of the great emotional traumas of medical school, the semester-long process of dissecting a cadaver. This could read like a recital of atrocity, or worse. Instead, without muting the emotional trauma that comes with disassembling every square inch of a human body, Dr. Montross focuses on her growing emotional bond with 'Eve.' The result is a remarkable symbiosis between the living student and her deceased 'instructor.' The author's style is direct, even confrontational at times; this isn't for the squeamish or faint of heart. But Montross never fails to treat her subject with respect and dignity, even honor. It is a devastatingly dense relationship within the stifling confines of the gross anatomy lab. But as the author makes clear, it is absolutely necessary for a young doctor's training. Here, the medical student/author emotionally dissects herself while reducing 'her' cadaver to, well, nothing. The process, however gory it might sound, is beautiful, revealing - literally and figuratively - and results is great empathy between 'physician' and 'patient.' As one destroys the other in her search for knowledge, they bond in a way that can only be described as beautiful and tender. This book gives the reader who is open to it an altogether different understanding of doctors and the medical profession. The profession is the better for Dr. Montross's explanation of the process by which she became a doctor.