Chapter One
At mid-morning on Tuesday, April 1, 1997, a late-model station wagon, ordinary
but for the smoked glass obscuring its rear windows, turned from South Orange
Avenue into the main entrance of the New Jersey Medical School parking lot. From
the driveway, the car made a hard left, descending immediately down a ramp
leading to a submerged loading dock.
Because the height of the dock accommodated trucks, not cars, the driver parked
off to the side. Unlatching the tailgate, he slid his delivery from the vehicle.
Workers in another venue might have been unsettled by what emerged from the
cargo hold, but in this environment no one paid the slightest attention. Here,
dead bodies were a matter of course. Every day, someone was either coming —
into the embalming room operated under the supervision of the NJMS anatomy
department — or going — the dock also served as the dispatch point for
undertakers retrieving the deceased from the medical school's sister
institution, Newark's University Hospital.
Once the collapsible gurney was removed from the station wagon, the driver
clicked the stretcher into position and wheeled i ... read full excerpt from: Body of Knowledge: One Semester of Gross Anatomy, the Gateway to Becoming a Doctor ebook
