NESL gets Cadavers first
Jonathan Zelken M'07The Dean of Students at New England School of Law (NESL) recently reported in a NESL newsletter that New England Law students will get “first dibs” on cadavers at the Tufts University School of Medicine beginning in August 2004. This will be the first time in twelve years that Dental students do not get first tracks in the anatomy lab, and the first time in many more that Law students will be required to learn human anatomy. Mixed feelings surround the Tufts Boston Campus community as a result of the unprecedented change of plan.
NESL students and administrators are eager for next fall to begin. Davy Jackass, a second-year law student, is resentful that he didn’t begin the study of Law two years later, “Damn. I could have cut people open all surgery-like, it would have been aw-hawsome.” The Dean at NESL justified his cause: “(…) just as Dental students need to learn more than teeth to provide adequate care to patients, the lawyer need understand his client inside and out to furnish a superior product. There is no better means of instructing [NESL] students than with Tufts Health Sciences students’ cadavers. Plus, it makes this time-honored institution that much more time-honorable. Institution…”
Administration at Tufts is ecstatic. One Tufts School of Medicine Dean claimed, “This is great. Not only will we contribute to the production of finer, more empathetic doctors of Law, but our dream of the M.D. /J.D. program may finally come to fruition. I have been at Tufts for 31 years; now, finally, I am satisfied to be a part of this world-class institution.” Two other Deans were preparing job applications for work at other institutions, “This is going to be great. Great. Just what [TUSM] needs.”
Cheer is not universal. Tufts medical students and alumni are pissed. “Wait. It is outrageous,” Abilash Gopal M’07 argued, “that first years will pay, what, 40-some thousand dollars each year for this school…and they don’t even get cadavers? I fear for the future of medicine.” Abilash’s classmate William (Bill) Miele M’07 smirked and offered no remark, as if to say, “first the Bookstore, now this?” These students have good reason to be upset, as their first-year successors will defect cadaver access rights to Tufts Dental students and Law students of a different institution. As of August 2004, NESL students will take a modified Tufts Clinical Anatomy course until December [JD237: Legal Anatomy], and Tufts Dental Students will have access from January to May. Medical students may receive CDs containing “online syllabi” with “all the pictures they need, those whiny babies”.
The President of Tufts Medical School explained
the problem and offered no solution. “We have an extensive digital
syllabus on a ‘CD-ROM’ device- high-tech stuff, you see? My
students do not require firsthand experience. Nonsense. The future of medicine
is changing, baby; those snot-nosed punks had better get used to surgery
from a computer screen.” He appeared somewhat distressed that he was
being questioned. “Plus, they do not have to endure the considerable
reek of formalin preservatives and decaying flesh.” The President
failed to mention that he lost rights to human cadavers in a poker match
against the Dean of NESL and a custodian of the Dental School (Texas Hold
‘Em format). “Nobody follows US News and World Rankings anyhow.
Who cares if we’re not going to be top-50 next year? Rankings are
for the birds. Everybody knows Harvard’s best anyway.”