RETURNING TO SCHOOL
I entered the University of Wisconsin Medical School in September 1979 and gross anatomy was one of the first classes I had that semester.  I was returning to school after a gap year following my graduation from undergrad the previous year.  I had been a fierce student from 7th grade through my senior year in college and had completely been burned out academically by June 1978.

LEAVING THE “CARE FREE” EXISTENCE
My return to the rigors of academic work was not smooth.  I had lived a care free existence for 15 months including travel in Europe, the Middle East and a wonderful summer in Seattle.  I was not prepared to gear up for an 18 credit semester competing with very smart and very motivated classmates.  Fortunately, I found myself in a tank group with 3 wonderful people who literally pulled me along through the 16 weeks of gross anatomy.

MEETING MY CADAVER
Meeting our cadaver, a very old shriveled and pickled man, was a fairly bizarre experience and spending day after day dissecting him was not easy or ever routine.  I remember feeling grateful to this man and his family for allowing us the experience to learn on his body.  I got somewhat used to the smell of the formaldehyde but never really got comfortable with cutting him apart to expose and explore all the muscles, bones, veins, arteries and nerves that we were tasked with finding and learning.  Also, it was a strange ritual every day to open the tank, crank him up and out of the formaldehyde and remove the cloth covering that shrouded his body.  Strange too was the reverse of that process at the end of each day.

RESPECT YOUR CADAVER
We received no preparation for this experience other than we were told we needed to respect our cadavers and to take our study seriously.  I think they should have sounded us out prior to the course and helped us prepare for what was to come.

David A. Waters, M.D.
Pediatrician
Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
Milwaukee, WI

 

The First Patient is a true presentation of the motivation for medical students and doctors. While watching the documentary I felt like I was in the anatomy room 42 years ago at Central University in Quito, Ecuador.

There are huge differences now about the use of donated bodies for scientific use, sterilization and security for students and teachers. But the same procedures and analysis are used to study directly the human anatomy, to understand the complexity of the human body, and to offer better treatments for patients. There are also big improvements for forensic medicine and its applications.

When I was a medical student, it was necessary for the students procure their own human skeleton to study Anatomy.  Finding a plastic model was almost impossible in our country. So you had to get it from a peer in the university or get your own bones from somewhere else. It was not easy and it was very expensive for those times. Our medical school had an amphitheater where we received anatomy classes with human bodies. We had to prepare presentations on structures, organs, isolation of nerves, arteries, etc. Sometimes we had to work on the body at night or weekends in the university to prepare our homework and get our records.  We used one official book for anatomy studies called “Anatomia de Gardner”. My close friends and peers and I also studied in a more complex and extended book called the “Anatomy of H Rouviere.”  We have our own human skeletons and books. On average, we spent about 60 hours each week studying anatomy. The class was the second year of the school of medicine. If you do not pass your second year, for sure was difficult to you to have a life as a doctor in the future.

Those bodies were our first patients. We respect them and treated them in the best way as possible so they could guide us for difficult times in medicine like we experience now with Coronavirus Pandemic.

I am including a picture of my Anatomy Books that I used in my studies. The Anatomy of H. Rouviere, Professor and Chief of the Anatomy of the Medicine Faculty of Paris. 7th edition Madrid 1959 printed in 3 Books.  These books are one of the few things I brought to the USA 17 years ago, when I moved here from my country. The reason? These books were a present from my oldest brother-in-law, Wagner, who is a Pediatrician. These books were used for me, and for my wife Lina, and a few years later for her brother Antonio, and then 15 years later for my wife’s niece Mariajose.  Today I found inside the books including some notes from my time as anatomy student. The year was 1977 (the 2nd year in the school of medicine, Central University of Ecuador, Quito-Ecuador) that I am including in the pictures.

Thank you for your interest in my history, this antecedent makes me a surgeon, and later a citizen working with the people and for the people in Public Health around the world.

Dr. José Mosquera
Executive Director
Roberto Clemente Health Clinic
Nicaragua

The Most Challenging Course in Medical School

Anatomy class is often considered one of the most challenging courses in medical school. Acquiring a strong understanding of the human body sets the groundwork for the rest of a medical student’s education – that rite of passage toward becoming a knowledgeable physician. However, we would fall short if we did not share the cognitive and emotional metamorphosis that also takes place as students progress through this course. I believe that awakening is what this documentary so vividly captures.

Their First Patient

There is something almost mystical about the transformation of first-year medical students as they sojourn through their course in Human Anatomy and Dissection. They enter medical school wide-eyed and perhaps somewhat naïve, with a passion and commitment to care for living and breathing “patients.” For many, as they step into the anatomy lab, it is their first real experience with human death. The humanity they envision serving suddenly becomes real and personal in the form of a cadaver – it truly is their first patient.

The Art of Medicine

Dr. Fredric Meyer performing brain surgery.

While they are learning the biological science of the human structure, they are also learning the art of medicine – the intriguing interplay of every element of the human body and the uniqueness of each patient they will encounter. They learn meticulous precision and concentration. They learn that every scar tells a story and that the muscles, tendons and bone structures they are memorizing and identifying might once have played a concerto, run a marathon or held a child. Many of them also learn and see first-hand the ravages of disease.

Teamwork

The other unknown that is so genuinely portrayed in this documentary is that the students enter the lab as individuals, but the learning is structured in such a way that they finish understanding what it means to be an integral part of a team. The students learn every teammate should be treated as a valued contributor and there is a shared responsibility for the patient. That learning of teamwork, sharing collective knowledge, relying on and valuing your colleague is at the very heart of how we practice medicine at Mayo Clinic. They are learning and experiencing our primary value – the needs of the patient always come first. And that will forever change them.

I am so extremely proud of our students in this documentary. As they graduate and spread out to all corners of our country, they will pursue their residencies and take with them the valuable lessons portrayed so well in this film.

Fredric B. Meyer M.D., F.A.A.N.S.
Juanita Kious Waugh Executive Dean for Education
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science
Dean, Mayo Clinic School of Medicine
Alfred Uihlein Family Professor of Neurologic Surgery

The documentary “The First Patient” introduces the public to one of the most amazing learning experiences that anyone could ever have: learning anatomy through dissection of a human cadaver. Gross anatomy class is one of the rites of passage for medical students and a significant step in the transformative process of becoming a doctor.

Lifting The Corner Of The Plastic Sheet…

I still remember my first gross anatomy class as a medical student at The University of Hong Kong. As I entered the brightly lit lab and breathed in its characteristic chemical smell for the first time, I was curious, excited and more than a little nervous. I had always had a keen interest in biology and anatomy, and had looked forward to the privilege of dissecting a human body and looking at its intricate structures firsthand. The cadavers, instead of being in body bags as they are now, lay on the dissection tables under sheets of plastic. While my classmates and I waited for the dissection to begin, I couldn’t help but quietly lift up the corner of the plastic sheet. I was 18 years old, and it was the first time I had ever seen a dead body.

Comprehension In Three Dimensions

The old lab where I had my first class has been replaced by a more modern facility, but gross anatomy has remained the foundation of medical study. This is for good reason, as it trains students in their three-dimensional comprehension of the human body, which is essential preparation for clinical procedures they will have to do after graduation on living patients. In addition to surgery, medical imaging, diagnostic procedures and the understanding of disease processes all require a knowledge of human anatomy.

Dissection Develops Tactile Knowledge

At The University of Hong Kong students learn anatomy through cadaveric dissection. By having an opportunity to open up the skin and separate the structures using their hands and dissection instruments, they develop an understanding of the shape and spatial relationship of the different structures in the human body. They also learn what the different kinds of tissues feel like. Through dissection, students begin to develop the tactile knowledge they will need to perform clinical procedures.

From Seeing Subtle Differences In Structure Comes Real Knowledge

In the gross anatomy lab, students learn to recognize not only anatomical structures, but also their variations. They are encouraged to look at different cadavers and realize that there are subtle differences in their anatomy and internal structures. It is much more difficult to acquire the same knowledge from images in a textbook, or from digital models.

Donor Respect Ceremonies Are Par For The Course

Besides anatomical knowledge, students learn teamwork and communication skills by negotiating tasks in the dissection lab. Through the dissection process, they also learn professionalism and respect.  At The University of Hong Kong all the bodies we now use for dissection are donated. We want our students to know that the opportunity to dissect these bodies is made possible by the goodwill of the donors, so we ask our students to join a respect ceremony at the beginning of a series of dissections, and then a farewell ceremony at the end.

The Nature Of Life, Death And Illness

Dissection class is also an opportunity for students to begin to think about the nature of life, death and illness. In Hong Kong, students enter medical school at the age of 17 or 18, directly after completing secondary school, although a few have already completed a university degree. Dissection class gives most of them their first-ever encounter with a dead body. We want our students to realize that these bodies were once living people just like themselves. We ask our students to write an essay reflecting on their feelings about their dissection experience. As their teacher, I feel very privileged to read these reflective essays, since some of them documented profound changes as a result of learning through dissection. Many students, as a result of coming into direct contact with the dead body of a person who willingly donated his or her body for them to dissect and to learn, suddenly realize the gravity of their career: it is about the life and death of another fellow human being.

Passing On Knowledge To The Next Generation

The study of gross anatomy through hands-on dissection plays an essential role in the study of medicine and the development of skilled and caring healthcare professionals. As a teacher of gross anatomy, I feel proud and privileged to pass on my knowledge to a new generation of medical students. I am sure that my fellow anatomy teachers are all excited to see that “The First Patient” has made that transformative learning process visible to the public.

Lap Ki Chan
Associate Professor in the Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education (IMHSE) and the Department of Anatomy at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong

The Door of the Anatomy Lab

Entering the door to medical school wasn’t the one that changed my life – that distinction belongs to the door of the anatomy lab. Coming to grips with my mortality, as well as recognizing the absolute lack of visual identity below the skin, was the cost of the opportunity to hold someone else’s aorta. ‘The First Patient’ eloquently exposes this transition (part of which is immediate, part of which is a marinade much like the body in formaldehyde) that turns a fortunate, yet innocent student into a tempered physician – able to keep focus while staring death in the face.

Intricacies of the Donor’s Body

The relationship of medical student to the cadaver is most bizarre. The donor gives of her or his body to the greater good and anonymity of science; the student, having never met them living, learns the intricacies of the donor’s body in greater personal detail than anyone they’ll ever meet before or after. A relationship that leaves the student with a wealth of knowledge and forever in debt and, in any other context, would result in life imprisonment. The experience could be a traumatic horror but, properly prepared, is raw and joyful learning.

The Priviliege and Promise of Medicine

Chip Duncan and crew capture the essence of physician birth. A mosaic of dramatic photography and sensitive personal reflection, this documentary singularly elevates the medical degree to a point nearly everyone will admire. Examining the promise of whole body and, by inference, organ donation, the film moves us to an altruistic point of ‘take me now!’ The student’s life and brain is forever expanded, and the viewer’s sense of what it means to be human – alive and dead – can no longer occupy the same space it once did. This is a successful attempt to explain the privilege and promise of medicine. The student’s brilliance is revealed as the donors’ light reflected.

Dave Midthun, MD
Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
President, Mayo Clinic Staff, 2018

“What’s really behind that door?”. Students gather outside the anatomy laboratory with mixed emotions; apprehension, excitement, worry, curiosity, and with varied expectations of what it will be like. Will it smell, will the bodies be covered, will they look human, will they be whole or dissected, will they have hair, will I feel unwell or emotional?

Rite of Passage in Medical Education

For many students, entering the anatomy laboratory for the first time is entering the unknown, something they have probably heard about, this so-called rite of passage in medical education. We have emphasised to our students the importance of anatomical knowledge and understanding as the foundations to their practicing in their chosen field of healthcare, but we must also realise that this journey of discovery in the anatomy lab will be daunting for many and in some cases confronting. For many students it will be the first time they have encountered death or thought about the realities of dying. Such experiences are challenging at the best of times, but particularly difficult for those students in their most formative of years and who have chosen to enter healthcare professions with the passion to save, preserve or improve life. I am therefore always conscious to make sure we prepare and support all our students through this phase of their learning and use approaches that combine the excitement and wonderment of seeing, feeling and understanding three-dimensional structure with the essential need for respect and professionalism.

Their Most Unusual and Effective Teacher

As an anatomy professor, I have had the privilege of taking hundreds of students through their first dissection experiences and introducing them to their most unusual and effective teacher. They will have never met their teacher in life, they may never learn their name or their life history, but they will learn so much from them, probably more than from any other teacher, knowledge and understanding that will be with them as a professional and used well beyond the short time they spend with their teacher. Developing this student-teacher relationship often starts tentatively with students unsure how to engage with their teacher, worried whether their dissecting skills are damaging structures and by doing so whether they are being appropriately respectful. But gradually as their skills develop, their teacher reveals more and more of their secrets and the confidence of the student grows and the relationship develops. The students begin to appreciate the natural variation between bodies, what happens when tissues and organs become damaged or diseased during life and what interventions may have been made.

Respect and Compassion

Such a dissection experience that focuses on exploration, anatomical knowledge, orientation and variation, as well as pathology is key, however this needs to be augmented by incorporating opportunities for developing a whole host of other professional skills and attributes, the greatest of which must be respect and compassion.

Professor Darrell Evans
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor of Developmental Tissue Biology
Academic Division
The University of Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

Like most medical students, I began my medical school journey at the Medical College of Wisconsin with a course on anatomy. Prior to the first day, I had prepared as much as I could – watching the dissection videos, learning the anatomical structures we would focus on, and reading tips from tutors on how to be successful in the course. While I felt prepared, I was still grappling with a difficult thought –  I would be dismantling a human body.

Donated Bodies

As solemn as this thought was, there were several reasons why this was acceptable, appropriate, and even necessary. If I didn’t actively pull apart and understand the human body, how could I ever understand what was abnormal in a patient? I had to comprehend around what structures the heart could snuggly sit and which nerve passed through a certain region so as to prevent post-operative complications. And even more, prior to passing away, our subjects had given their consent to being dissected; they had donated their bodies with the hope to inspire and teach students.

Transformative Process

Therefore, I began this thought-provoking and transformative process much like the first year medical students portrayed in this documentary. The anatomy lab is a revered experience by all medical students as it portrays the epitome of advice consistently given by mentors, peers, and physicians – you need to know and understand what is normal – normal postures, structures, locations, textures, and sounds – so that you can distinguish what is abnormal in a patient.

The film is very representative of how students develop in anatomy. Confidence in our ability to dissect improves from the first cut to the last. Working in small groups around the cadaver helps ease the complexity that would have been otherwise too arduous for any student to complete alone. Talking with classmates made me realize everyone had different reactions that overwhelmed them. For example, eating after anatomy lab was an interesting activity as I would have to consciously forgo thoughts of what muscles I had separated just hours prior. Yet, we were all comforted in realizing the many classes prior had completed this same journey and we were united in our desire to learn about medicine and ultimately, take care of our patients.

Death is Defined as Cessation of all Biological Functions

In medical terminology, death is defined as the cessation of all biological functions. Thoughts and memories of a deceased person transcend their death and I believe this is in part why we look towards religion or fate to answer confusing and sacred questions. The documentary portrayed many viewpoints from students on the topics of death and religion. It was interesting to see the multitude of ways each student processed this journey. In the religion I follow, there is a separation of body and soul, wherein the body is just a vessel to complete the ultimate actions of the soul. So when a human dies, the soul still remains intact and might either proceed to an after-life or be re-born to wash away prior sins. And in the most basic sense, this helped separate the identity of the human being from the first patient I was dissecting.

Journey to Become a Doctor

This class challenged me emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. It helped me grow on my journey to become a doctor. The anatomy experience is arguably the most important stepping stone in achieving the medical doctorate and The First Patient beautifully captures so much of the metamorphic progression of the first year medical students.

Sai-Suma Samudrala
MD/PhD Candidate
Medical College of Wisconsin

“Poets understand that there is nothing of value without death. Without death there are no lessons, without death there is no dark for the diamond to shine from.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

It’s safe to say that the most fundamental and long-standing mystery we as humans have sought to solve throughout our evolution as a species is this: What are we? More poignantly: Who are we? Lately, in my personal quest to get my head and heart around this cosmological enigma, I have found much repose in the study of myth. Symbol and archetype (which we too often mistake for biography and history) are not the moon, but fingers pointing to the moon. The twentieth-century master of myth, Joseph Campbell, spoke much about the hero’s journey vis-a-vis archetype-affirming campfire stories told throughout the centuries, meant to illuminate a clearer-seeing into our subconscious: who we truly and purely are beneath the skin.

Embrace My Own Humanity and Mortality

With that in mind, the moment my friend, Chip Duncan — with light in his eyes — told me about his filmmaking journey with The First Patient, I was immediately fascinated by its prospects and possibilities to give us a rarely-seen vantage point into our shared journey up the mountain to stand face-to-face with the Inevitable. It conjured a terrifying invitation to dare to face and embrace my own humanity and mortality with a deeper sense of awe. After viewing The First Patient in its entirety, it definitely accomplished its task. Beforehand, Chip told me that this was the most spiritually enlightening film he has ever made. Well, I definitely get that now.

While being immersed in the study of myth and archetype leading up to my viewing of The First Patient, it crystalized something I have been ruminating on: Each body is a vehicle of consciousness; our journey is ultimately unto a universal identification with who we are as a collective Self. Beneath the skin, we are ultimately made of the same stuff. Wow. If we actually owned that transformational truth, how would our reconciliation with equality, compassion, and empathy for those ‘not like us’ be revitalized?

Dismemberment

In viewing The First Patient, the dismemberment motif, where the hero is chopped to pieces (present in certain Eskimo stories, in Egyptian stories, in stories from all over) stood out to me as I contemplated the rite-of-passage journey these medical students traveled. In these stories, heroes face their shadows, their dark counterparts. In these stories the hero has to slay the other in order to enter the next world alive. Specifically seen in the story of the Egyptian god Osiris, where he’s killed, dismembered, and put together again. This dismemberment motif is seen more blatantly in the Native American story of Blackfoot, were the father of the buffalo bride is stomped to pieces, then resurrected. Through the centuries, we have depended on such myths to give us a sense of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

The predominant story structure that underpins century-surviving myths, like that of Blackfoot and Osiris, is the Life/Death/Life cycle: the hero’s path from birth, to death, to rebirth — i.e. to Buddha-hood, Christlikeness, Brahman, Allah-envelopment, etc, etc. This cycle is evident in every novel, fable, feature film, graphic novel, anthropomorphic campfire story, and most customarily, within every major religion and faith tradition. The Life/Death/Life cycle is everywhere, literally. Chip Duncan’s artistic achievement in The First Patient dovetails into something Joseph Campbell said about the role of artists and storytellers: “Artists are magical helpers, evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves. They can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives.”

A contemporary of Campbell, and another one of my literary heroes was the late, counter-culture monk and social agitator, Thomas Merton. Merton insisted, “We are already One; we just don’t know it yet. What we have to become is what we are.” There is no separateness. Thus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the all in the individual — as in The First Patient’s ‘rite-of-initiation’ thread — so brings the hero to the self in all.

At a time when the universal equality of all human beings is under assault, and nationalism, tribalism, and totem is uplifted as a faux litmus test for power and superiority, may The First Patient be a pinpointing scalpel that razes the masks we hide behind and invites us to face the deeper question of who we truly are, not who we want the world to think we are behind our self-fabricated Instagramatic and Maskbook faces.

Deeper Awakening

The hero’s journey is always one of discovery: returning back home with an elixir or healing balm for transformation & enlightenment. In my observation, this is what the medical students featured in The First Patient have come away with. Their success in this journey is not measured by a framed piece of paper that will someday hang on their walls, but a deeper awakening about our collective identity.

After spending an entire semester with their cadavers, the culmination of these students’ journey literally brought me to tears. A memorial service for their cadavers honored them for their willing service to be vehicles of consciousness to these artists, these doctors-to-be, who were undeniably transformed by this rite-of-passage experience. My ultimate moment withThe First Patient came with something Mayo Clinic Teaching Assistant, Paul Salem said: In doing this, “you can see every human for what they are, as a human being who deserves compassion. And that applies to everyone, even our enemies.”

Benjamin A. Eisner is a Milwaukee-based director, cinematographer, and screenplay writer with a passion for social justice and reframing public discourse through the stories he pens.

 

Forty-four years years ago this fall, on my first day of dental school, we were introduced to our cadavers for the course of gross anatomy. I remember it well – it was a very moving experience to have the privilege of studying the fascinating subject of human anatomy by the dissection of actual human bodies. I was looking forward to it because as a high school senior planning on a medical career l had been able to tour the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison. During the tour, our group got a quick look at the gross anatomy lab with real dissections going on and I had a short exposure to cadavers for the very first time. That got me – I was fascinated and knew for sure right then I wanted to pursue a medical career. Some of my dental school classmates, however, were unprepared and we lost two or three immediately on the first day of class.

A Deeply Moving Experience

In viewing the film, the interviews of the students brought back many of the strong emotions and memories of gross anatomy class. I believe the film does an excellent job of bringing to light the varied emotions and fears faced by the students studying the human body for the first time. For some of them it was the first time they had seen a dead human body, much less touched one. The emotions of the students felt almost palpable on the screen, exactly like it was for me and my classmates all those years ago. I don’t believe anyone can go through that experience and not be moved and touched in a deep way.

The Real Magic

I would highly recommend this film for anyone, either for general interest, or especially for anyone interested in a medical career. My daughter, who is a student at UW-Madison, intends on pursuing a medical career and I had her watch the film. She was both moved and fascinated. The film isn’t for everyone, but then neither is a medical career. The real magic is the way the story is told through these student’s experiences as they study gross anatomy for the first time on their way to becoming doctors.

James S. Leaman, D.D.S.
Former Associate Clinical Professor, Marquette University School of Dentistry
40 years private dental practice

Framing Gross Anatomy in the Album of Life

There are inevitably pieces of life that frame and help define how you see the world from that point forward. These parts of life may seem, at the time, fleeting, insignificant, or even obstacles one must simply and quickly overcome to move on and forget ever happened. It is one thing to live out these moments internally; to go through the ins and outs of each day, moving forward whether you like it or not. But it’s an entirely different experience to watch these moments unravel from an outsider’s point of view in a context you never knew existed.

To be honest with you, being part of The First Patient seemed pretty insignificant when I signed the film release. It was effortless; another box to check; another I to dot. I thought, seven weeks of my life would come and go and I’d get through whatever happened, good or bad. But this period in my life ended up being very different than I imagined; and different still when I relived it through the film. Watching myself and my peers experience Anatomy again was as if I was seeing this snippet in time for the very first time. In the past, I had the storyboard memorized. Being involved in film production myself, I knew exactly what clips were coming, what edits had been made, and knew “the experience” inside and out. But this time I sat at the edge of my seat throughout the entire film. Was that really how we felt, how we looked, how we responded? What would we discover next? How would the next moments and days shape us?

Training of a Medical Student

Anatomy serves many purposes in the training of a medical student. The most obvious is to teach you the intricacies of the human body; where the genitofemoral nerve is; what the maxillary sinus looks like from the inside. The second is teamwork; learning to work alongside three others [and effectively 51 others] for the duration of 7 weeks, digging yourselves out of the immense amount of knowledge that must be learned—together.  But I didn’t realize at the time or even until I watched this film, which so eloquently portrayed our lives at that time, what anatomy actually teaches you most: reverence and compartmentalization.

Dissection

Through dissecting the masseter, the platysma, the gastrocnemius, we were instilled with an awe of the human body.

This awe and respect that I learned from my first patient hasn’t left me and I pray never will.

But she also taught me how to step away; how to isolate the semblance of myself from my emotion, a skill that I use every day when working with living, breathing patients and their families.  

She taught me what it means to be a respectful learner, but also the capacity and ability I have to be a respectful teacher.

She quite literally opened her life to me so that I might understand, be able to process, be able to think in the moment, undistracted by my own feelings and outpouring of emotion.

She taught me how to feel within limits and understand my role beside the patients that would come after her.

All this she gave me after her physical heart stopped beating, her last breath had faded away.

Caring for Patients

There are inevitably pieces of life that frame and help define how you see the world from that point forward. Though I had taken snapshots in my mind, framed them, and put them away on a shelf somewhere to be dusted off in the years to come, The First Patient allowed me a new definition of our experiences. We grew, we were who we were, we loved and cried, got hungry from formaldehyde; and we each wrote our own definition of ourselves within those 7 weeks. A definition that we now shape, mold, and rescript as we move forward and continue to experience and digest what our patients continually give to us as we care for them. For this, and for so much more, I will be forever grateful.

See Amanda in THE FIRST PATIENT premiering October 20th. Ticket info Here.