When Breath Becomes Air

Paul sees medical school as an option to hash out life’s questions and is accepted to study at Yale. Cadaver dissection at school is one of his first visceral encounters with a human body in the medical field. Paul’s ruminations on his dealings with cadavers, or “donors,” focuses on the calm and detached demeanor needed to perform operations on a dead human body. Paul describes that this lends a “severe gravity” to the early days of medical school, and he has a difficult time confronting his first cadavers on the table.

Within a few weeks Paul is able to recount even the most grotesque details of his procedures in the classroom, cheerfully zipping through his assignments. This does not mean, however, that he does not continue to take his work seriously. He is able to humanize the donors while not letting his emotions overtake him. He understands how “the most profound human suffering becomes a mere pedagogical tool” (50).

After completing his two years of extensive study at medical school, Paul enters the second half of the program, spent in the hospital and the clinic. He meets the resident, Melissa, on his first day, and learns that he’ll be working in the labor and delivery ward.