Inside Dr. Frankenstein's Laboratory
byVicki HawkinsJ
Student BMJ September 1998: Soundings
Intercalated Bmedsci student, Newcastle upon Tyne
This has to be one of the most bizarre situations I have ever found myself in. I am sitting in something like a dentist's chair, with my arms tied down and a blue plastic net taped to my head. Around me, banks of machinery loom imposingly and periodically a jolt of something passes through my head, and my right arm tries to punch me in the face.
The scene strikes me as being vaguely reminiscent of a low budget sci-fi film. Before you ask, this is not some sordid medic initiation rite, nor, I hope, have I been sent to the electric chair. This, my friends, is science, in all its wondrous splendour. Well anyway, that's what the lady in the white coat said as she strapped down my arms and drew on my face to work out where to stick everything. (She confidentially assured me that she was using a water soluble ink, so it is bound to wash off. Eventually.
Being an experimental subject is, I have been told, an integral part of the experience of a medical student.
...I suppose I should be grateful that I sell my body only to medical science. In a way, however, it seems appropriate that we should earn our pennies having strange things done to us. After all, in the not too distant future our living will depend on us doing peculiar and unpleasant things to other people. Perhaps it's only fair that we have a turn now. As I ponder this, I notice that my white coated companion has just turned up the dial on the cortical stimulator as far as it will go. Farewell my valiant brothers and sisters. Death or glory awaits!
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