Syedyshev Oleg
Syedyshev Oleg

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Humorous Essays Based on students' memories

"All have died
except for those who are alive, and those whom we remember"Confucius

Essay 19. Anatomy

Anatomy! Yes, this is the subject after attending which some nervous students quit their study at a medical university. This is the subject, without which there is no medicine at all. I still can hear in my head the counting-out rhymes and recitative which helped the students to remember hundreds, what hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of names of bones, bonelets or prominences on those bonelets. Here are a couple of them:

In a valley, in a village,
In a house on the river Hudson
There lived three handsome brothers - Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral
And their sister Pisiform.

Or here is one more rhyme to memorize the names of wrist bones:

Trapesium, Trapesium, why are you late?
I went to visit my cousins: Trapezoid, Capitate and Hamate.


Dissection

How many legends and various stories about anatomy are told among the students! I want my reader to learn about a couple of stories, which have witnesses.

Here is an example, Tolya Lopatin told me and swore that it was true that Valera Kofeyev, when answering a question about a breastbone during a class picked up from a basin with preparations a sacral bone. And one could not say that he was hesitating. You yourself remember Kofeyev; it was seldom when he hesitant. Well, when answering about the anatomy of a breastbone, he managed to find and show on a sacral bone all hollows and prominences of the fist and was very surprised by discontent of a professor. Though, anyone of us could be in Valera's place.

Here is a story which happened in our 118 group. Its main character will be again Lida Syrkasheva. You for sure remember the story which I called "Striptease". In this one Lida is absolutely different. Well, first of all, for anatomy class everyone wore surgical coats, so those who are waiting for more striptease are out of luck. And now about Lida, during anatomy classes there were used pointers made of wire instead of wooden ones. Well, Lida when she was giving an answer on anatomy and was not confident in the answer used to unintentionally take the tip of a pointer in her mouth. We racked our brains over how to tell Lida about this for a long time; as her reaction could be unpredictable. Poor Lida! She was so sick and throwing up after a professor reprimanded her for that.

The characters of the next story became two friends: Zhenya Romashov and I. The story is also trivial. For sure, a similar story happened not only in our group. And what connects this story with anatomy is the fact that after answering a professor's question Zhenya sat down, and I put a radial bone under his butt. Of course, I was wrong. I had to take a different bone. The radial bone has a very sharp appendix at one of its ends. Zhenya was in pain, and he pushed me with anger so hard, that I fell down from my chair. And the professor kicked out of the class both of us, Zhenka and me. Well, it was obvious, why Zhenka, but what for I was kicked out? In the hall Zhenka and I, again friends, started contemplating our revenge on the professor. Just imagine, two freshmen are contemplating a plan of revenge on the professor!

And the professor was (I, as usual, do not remember his name and patronymic, and even his last name) the youngest assistant of the General Anatomy department. It was in 1966 - 1967 academic year. If anyone remembers that, please, let me know. The internet helped. I found a list of those who were teaching and are currently teaching at Kemerovo State Medical Institute. The professors' name was Zolotukhin Mikhail Ivanovitch. So, our minds were busy concocting a scheme of vengeance, even when after a break we were allowed to return to the class. And we did revenged ourselves, though later, when we studies entrails. We tied one end of bowels to a strap of a surgical coat of that young assistant professor, and the other end was trailing after him along the hall when he was walking to the assistants' office.

I agree that it is not nice. But what about the saying that it is better to regret about what was done, than about what was undone?

PS: The idea of the first plot was suggested by A.G.Lopatin.

july 10, 2011

© Copyright: Oleg Syedyshev, 2012
Publishing licence #21202100564

Translated by Viktoria Potykinato content ↑


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