On Friday 30^th October Dr Christian Turner came in to teach us how to dissect a cow’s eye. His job at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead is a Paediatric Cardiologist. This means he directs the surgeons on how to help children’s hearts. Surprisingly, he had not dissected a cow’s eye since university, so his memory must be amazing. My dad taught us incredibly well how to dissect a cow’s eye and showed us step by step on what to do. The first thing he told us was that we needed to respect the cow’s eye. He explained that all the eyes had been part of a living creature a couple of days ago. Dr Turner taught us about the different parts of the eye and what they do to help us see. These included the lens, vitreous humour, sclera, the optic nerve and the iris. After Dr Turner taught us about the different parts of the eye, we were allowed to go off and do the dissection ourselves. The tools we used were a pair of scissors, a probe, and if we needed help, a scalpel.

Below is a picture of the eye Tom Chanter and James Adams and I dissected. Also shown is a cross-section of a cow’s eye. In our team we had two dissectors and a cameraman. The last job was my position. Despite being the doctor’s son, we did not get very far into the dissection and we had to call for help numerous times. Nevertheless, it was still a great experience for all. I even put on my gloves from time to time to poke the eye.

By William T 5J (son of Dr Turner)