Missing Penises, Corpse Selfies, and Armpit Fat: The Life of a Romanian Medical Student

This article originally appeared on VICE Romania.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about death and the process of dying. I know, not the prettiest of thoughts; there are far nicer ideas to be contemplating than your own demise. It's a tough subject. We all know it's out there, lurking somewhere on the horizon, but many of us find it extremely uncomfortable to talk about.

Medical students don't seem to have that problem, though. They are reminded of death on a daily basis and seem to be able to laugh it off with their own unique brand of macabre humor. I sat down with a few of them to ask about that very matter and find out how it feels to spend so much of your time with corpses. After our chat, I'm having a hard time imagining myself ever donating my body to science.

"Sometimes you'll get emotionally attached to a particular cadaver. After having seen it so many times during the semester, you begin to hope you'll get the same one for your practical exam. Some of the corpses I've seen had their eyes wide-open but they hardly looked like eyes anymore—they looked more like raisins. Life is a fragile thing, really. After you die, there's most likely nothing else."

– Alina, fourth-year student.

"My anatomy teacher once told me that they preserve bodies by casually hanging them from ropes in a formalin pool in the university basement. I always wanted to see it but I have never been allowed in.

"One time, we got a body that had his dick cut off. It was pretty awkward to look at, especially for the guys. The worst thing I've witnessed is armpit fat. It looked so similar to rice that I couldn't eat the stuff for about a year."

- Alin, third-year student

"Most of the corpses we get have already been dissected. Even so, rummaging through the bits and pieces is extremely beneficial because there's a world of difference between what you see in your illustrated anatomy atlas—with all those bright colors and clear lines—and the real deal.

"I actually think a lot about death. It used to mostly be about my loved ones dying, but these days I think a lot about my own death. Unfortunately, we're all going to experience it—some more brutally than others. Last winter, I saw one of my classmates get hit by a truck and it made me realize that, as medical students, we're way too superficial and we don't pay nearly enough attention to those right next to us. At school, we've been taught to joke about death and to eat next to corpses and all that. I think that, in many ways, it's made us become just as cold as them."

- Adelina, third-year student

"The smell of formalin (a.k.a. formaldehyde)—the stuff that preserves bodies—always makes me hungry. There's a certain flavor to it. To stop corpses from rotting, we sprinkle them with salt, which, mixed with the formalin, gives the corpses this weird food-like smell.

"Sure, I'm scared of dying, but it's going to happen to all of us whether we like it or not. I'm just grateful I've been given the chance to learn about so many things. That's what keeps me going."

- Andrei, fourth-year student

"I'm quite fond of corpses because, unlike living people, they don't speak. When I started dealing with dead bodies, I found it hard to believe they'd ever actually been alive. A live human and a dead human felt like two different things.

"One time, a colleague dared me to make a cadaver smile, so I pulled at its cheeks and did it. My colleague then took the corpse's hand and made it look as if he was jerking himself off. It was fun, especially because our teacher was laughing as well."

- Cristian, third-year student

"Once, two teaching assistants were struggling to remove a brain from a corpse's skull so they called me in to help. After about half an hour of cutting away at it with an angle grinder and hitting it with a chisel, we made it through. Trust me, it's uncomfortable to hear a man's skull crack in your hands.

These days, death in society is viewed as a tragedy even though it's the most natural thing. That said, it's terrible to witness someone have a heart attack. Or to see a 30-year-old with a pregnant wife being told he has pancreatic cancer."

- George, fourth-year student

"People take selfies all over the place, so why shouldn't they do it at medical school too? Taking a selfie with a corpse isn't any more complex than a window washer taking a selfie while cleaning windows. The only real difference is that a board of ethics could give you a hard time for the former. According to current regulations, corpse selfies are forbidden.

"Lab jokes are usually pretty macabre—the morgue is not really a space for political correctness. That said, I'm yet to meet anyone who's bothered by it or doesn't appreciate the funny side of dealing with dead people. You know that game, "Marco Polo"? One time, I hid my mate's pen in a cadaver and we played that. Another time, right around Christmas, one of my mates dressed a body up like Santa Claus."

- Bogdan, sixth-year student

"Once, a teacher told us about how a body's penis simply vanished. Seemingly, someone cut it off and took it home. There's plenty of necrophilia jokes floating about, typically between alpha males. Stuff like: 'If you need a shag, there's plenty of fit birds in the lab.'"

- Ciprian, first-year student

"A week or so after dissecting a woman, I thought I saw her next to me on the train. She looked exactly the same. I stared at her for a while to see if it was actually her. I wasn't scared or anything—that sort of stuff doesn't worry me. School has shaken me up a bit, though. It's forced me to think a lot more about the process of dying—mostly about things like, how the body degrades and decomposes."

- Paula, third-year student