The AP Biology Class visited the Loyola School of Medicine to improve their understanding of the human body and allow them to learn about medical school. Students got a chance to examine cadavers at the medical school and see first hand how the human body’s structure relates to its function.

“The most interesting part for me was seeing the anatomical structures that we study in class on the cadavers,” said junior Cara Delacluyse. “We’ve studied things like the circulatory and other body system, and seen them in dissection, but it’s different than actually seeing them in the human body.”

In the cadaver lab, there were also examples of abnormal structures to compare to the normal ones. The diseased structures gave students an insight to pathology, oncology and other subjects that may come up on the AP exam or future studies.

“I really liked comparing the normal human cadaver parts we saw with abnormal ones, like a normal lung to a smoker’s or a normal ovary to a cancerous one,” said senior Emily Buczynski. “It was really fascinating to see how different they were and how much the human body is capable of withstanding.”

Students also practiced CPR on patient simulator dummies in order to stabilize their breathing after a simulated heart attack.

“It was pretty cool to be able to practice CPR on the patient simulators the school uses,” Delacluyse said.

Students also had the opportunity to attend a session on the MCATS, medical school admission, and general tips for students hoping to pursue a medical profession.

“It was really helpful to hear medical student’s tips for the MCATS and applying to medical school,” Buczynski said. “A student and a professor led a talk that gave us cool memory tricks like how to remember how many vertebrae there are cervical lumbar and thoracic.”