Their lives bore loved ones. Their lives bore professions. Their lives bore illness.

Their lives bore death.

But as death was borne from the lives of our first patients, it took on an unusual form. Not just its accustomed coarseness in the form of grief, loneliness, or decomposition of the body, but their death bore life.

On my first day of anatomy lab, I stood next to my assigned table with three other students. The temperature in the lab was as low as my courage, anxiety and uncertainty running wild in my mind. Will my first patient be a man or a woman? How will he look? Suppose she somehow twitches? What if my patient resembles my deceased uncle or my grandmother who has passed on?

As the white cover was pulled, I met her for the first time. She was 89 years old. Her eyes closed and lips pursed, she wore a stoic expression on her face as her hands were politely crossed. She didn’t utter a word, yet was able to inspire in me a warmth and calm I didn’t think could be had. She allowed me to learn great anatomy, great detail, great confidence. She gave life to my knowledge, life to my ability to know pathologies, and life to my courage in dealing with death. Through her death, she gave me-a stranger-life.

She, along with our other first patients, contributed to our future careers so that we could give life to our patients, to the underserved and to our communities; give life to the troubled teenager’s sense of reason, give life to the fiancé about to die in the ER, give life to a strained healthcare system, give life to that 1-month-old boy born with HIV.  Perhaps her death has indirectly breathed life into a possible cure for cancer, a disease which claimed her very own survival. With even her mind, metabolism, and might all gone, she is still able to give life. 

As we continue our development here at FSU College of Medicine, a four-year-gestational period to term, we would remain indebted to our first patients for their contribution to our lives as aspiring physicians so that we can in turn give life to others.

Wendell Bobb