“I don’t have the words to express how thankful I am that we are together, in person, for today’s celebration. Last year’s commencement was virtual. Maybe
A panic attack brought on by the stress of medical school
Dead bodies surrounded me. They lay on their backs,
supine in medical terminology. I imagined some staring at the white plastic sheets that covered them completely, others glaring at their closed eyelids. Their smell, a mixture of formaldehyde and death, made me gag. Corpses horrified me. They represented the end of life, separation from loved ones, the possibility of a soul’s eternal damnation. Now as a first-year medical student in Gross Anatomy class, I would examine and touch a cadaver daily to learn the mysteries of the human body. I was thirty-two years old, but terrified that these corpses would drag me into their netherworld.