My overall impression from the dissection was that it was an enriching educational experience. I was surprised by how different each heart was. I know that we were told each would be unique in some way, but I feel that this was more so than expected. My favorite part of the dissection was cutting into the right and left ventricle with the scalpel. This portion of the dissection allowed me to have a better visual of what it looks like when the blood flows through the heart to the rest of the body.  The most difficult part of the dissection, for me, was when we had to find the pulmonary veins and arteries and stick our probes in them. I studied the heart and have a well understanding of where everything is located,  but I struggled on finding the arteries and veins when actually performing the dissection. The pig hearts were different than the models we had been using when learning, so I got confused looking for them on the real heart.  It must be stressful working on a human heart because you know their life is depending on you. However, I think it would be so cool at the same time. My aunt is a surgical nurse, and she has worked with cardiac surgeries before. She talks about it in a way that makes me want to work in the medical field as well. I didn’t learn anything new about the heart specifically because I was already familiar with it before. I did, however, get over my fear of working with the heart. I think the dissection was structured very well, and I don’t have any suggestions for improvements. I think we covered a lot on the heart and I’m satisfied with the information that I learned.

-Cassidy