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By Root 987 0

in the United States, Dr. Sutherland. Tall and lanky, with silky white hair, Sexton dresses for comfort in sneakers and khakis and always wears whimsical neckties—one has dancing skeletons on a blood-red field. The antithesis of a dour anatomist, Sexton is sunny and self-deprecating, and in the lecture hall, a bit of a klutz, which is actually quite endearing. His clip-on microphone often falls off; he has trouble finessing the overhead light dimmer; his slides sometimes come up sideways (we all tilt our heads obligingly). The man obviously knows anatomy backward and forward—or, forgive me, posterior and anterior, as well as medial and lateral, superior and inferior, and in every other anatomical position—but he also makes it entertaining. In summing up the core behavioral impulses regulated by the sympathetic nervous system, for instance, Sexton once told the class: “Just remember the four Fs: Fight. Flight. Fear. And—who knows the last F?”

Puzzled silence.

“That’s right,” Sexton said with a knowing nod. “Sex!”

Sexton brings the same exuberance to the lab, where, like his fellow instructors, he roams from group to group, answering questions and giving impromptu lectures. Each teacher has a different style. Dr. Nripendra Dhillon—Dhillon, for short—is the third of the trio of senior instructors and a master of visuals. I mean this both literally—he will often sketch on any nearby chalkboard, whether in the lecture hall or lab—and metaphorically. Lecturing on the intrauterine development of male reproductive organs, for instance, Dhillon made the descent of the testicles through the fetal body sound as dramatic as Odysseus’s epic journey home from Troy. With his deep, melodic voice, Dhillon recounted how the testes actually develop in a pocket of fat on the fetus’s back, behind the kidneys. But at around the ninth week of fetal life, these delicate little, well, balls ship off. Traveling separately but to a similar map, they slowly traverse the lower abdomen, pushing through layer after layer of abdominal tissue, acquiring new coats as they tunnel to their final destination: the scrotum. Though any man who has been kicked in the groin might not think so, these added layers actually provide protection. To make sure this journey was ingrained in our memory, as Dhillon spoke, he pulled successive, colored latex gloves over his right hand to represent each new layer—purple, green, pink, and finally, blue—each time balling his fingers into a thick, rubbery fist.

Two teaching assistants round out the team. Because Christy and Aaron were so recently students themselves, they are especially helpful in sharing mnemonics and other time-saving study tips. Of all the instructors for this course, though, Dana herself has made the strongest impression on me. In what I take as the highest form of flattery, she never treats me like an observer but as one of the 121 students in the class, even grilling me good-naturedly in the oral pop quizzes she sometimes springs during lab. Given her obvious enthusiasm for the subject of anatomy, I was surprised to learn, though, that Dana had never set out to become an anatomist.

“I’m definitely an ‘accidental anatomist,’” she told me one afternoon as we chatted on the way up to lab. After earning a B.S. in nutrition, a master’s in biology, and a Ph.D. in physiology, Dana had planned to go straight into medical research. But there was a surprise on the menu: an offer of a teaching job landed on her desk—UCSF was seeking a physiology instructor—and it was unexpectedly tempting. She accepted and was amazed to find how much she enjoyed teaching. Then she met Sexton and realized she would also like to teach the subject her new friend was so passionate about. He thought this was a fabulous idea; in fact, the anatomy department had an opening coming up. But first, Dana would have to turn herself into a great dissector. Sexton became her mentor. He spent hours and hours of extra time helping her learn how to perform the most difficult dissections. The greatest lesson he taught her, though, was one of aesthetics: