On Thursday October 30th, 15 MAHS students visited the cadaver lab at Pennwest California, about an hour away from home. Many of the students took their unique opportunity to learn more about both their own bodies and their various medical fields the students gathered for this unique hands-on experience. This is usually an annual trip, so if you are an upperclassman in AP Bio, Honors Anatomy, or the Gifted Program and interested, keep an eye out!

Students were given the opportunity to dissect and analyze the bodies both in their conditions and causes of death, They were able to determine different diseases the bodies had based on their differences in their body parts such as their organs and brains. The female, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, had visual cues on her brain to show her diagnosis. These cues included her brain was overall smoother than the males and other visual abnormalities in her brain stem. The students compared and contrasted the two bodies’ brains to determine what was healthy versus not. Using their knowledge, the students were also able to conclude that the differences in the male’s lung size was due to restricted airflow. Interesting enough, the usual two lobed left lung had grown a third one to compensate for the right, smaller one.

Students were also able to dissect the bodies for their own curiosity. Danica Bacu, Senior, assisted in the removal of one of the cadavers’ eyes! The students were also able to see bones severed! They were able to analyze the bone health and bone marrow of the cadavers. Interestingly enough, the cadaver had poor bone health, but good bone marrow, where the other had great bone health, but poor bone marrow.

Overall, this was a wonderful experience for those who are interested in the medical field to learn more about bodies. Thank you to the professionals at Penn West California, Mr. Teti, Ms. Mosberger, and Ms. Spinelli for creating this opportunity.