Yep that's a heart, a pig's heart! This last Wednesday I participated in our contested "pig labs." I don't say hotly contested because since switching to pigs from dogs, the protesters outside the medical school have dwindled, but they still come. I will leave the ethical discussion of the use of animals for research, tests, and teaching for another day, sufficeth to say that this was a wonderful experience that I feel will help me be a better doctor to help better serve my future patients.
In the pig lab we did many things to a completely anesthetized, well monitored pig to see the physiological effect they have on the heart. Pig physiology closely mimics that of humans (not quite as closely as dogs) with a little variation. We inserted certain volumes to simulate senarios of blood or fluid transfusions, loss of fluid, diseased states of heart components and how they affect the rest of your circulation, etc. We administered drugs that the body uses to stimulate the heart and also blockers of this stimulation to see cause and effect. We used a ultrasound and doppler imaging to see the workings of the heart in 2D.
And then....
We performed a sternotomy (opened the chest to gain access to the heart) and saw the beautiful workings of our creator. The magesty of the heart! What an amazing, tough, resilient, vital, funtional, inspiring organ. There is much I could say about what it was like to feel in my hand the beating of a live heart, but those words would only diminish my experience. It was a exhilerating to hand pump a failing heart for the first time, and even more so when the heart regained its rythmicity and beat on its own after defibrillation. I feel much more prepared to someday be called upon to administer to the needs of a suffering patient because of this exposure and understanding. In the end, we euthanized our pig with an appropriate dose of potassium. What an amazing experience!
