Pay Attention

A group of first-year medical students is gathered around an operating table for their first anatomy lesson with a dead body.

“As a doctor, you’ll need to develop two key skills,” the professor begins.

“The first is stoicism. You can’t be disgusted by anything involving the human body.”

The professor then rolls the body over, sticks his finger into the corpse’s butt, withdraws it and sticks his finger in his mouth.  “Now do the same,” he instructs. 

The horrified students hesitate, but eventually take turns dipping a finger into the cadaver’s anus and then sucking on it. 

When everyone has finished, the professor continues, “The second skill is observation. I stuck in my middle finger and then I sucked on my index finger. Pay attention.”