The 31 students enrolled in College Biology at Saint Patrick High School got to take advantage of a terrific “hands-on” learning opportunity when they took a field trip to the Surgical Suite at Triton College. Students were able to study all aspects of human anatomy by working on human cadavers. Six dissected cadavers were laid out on tables, and the students studied them in teams of five or six students. Each team was required to find and identify various bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons and organs on each cadaver.

The field trip to the Surgical Suite at Triton is a unique experience that Saint Patrick provides for its students, and it has become an annual rite of spring. Gordon Will has taken his College Biology classes on this field trip every spring for the last 22 years. “A few years ago they stopped letting high schools groups come here, but we argued that since our class is a college level course, we should still be allowed to make this trip. They agreed to let us continue,” said Will. The trip is particularly valuable to students that plan to pursue careers in the medical and health care fields, “ it would be interesting to find out how many students that have taken this course over the years have gone on to become doctors,” said Will.

This year’s field trip represents the final one in the long and distinguished career of Mr. Will, who is retiring from Saint Patrick at the end of the school year. Will has been a fixture at Saint Patrick since the 1960’s. He has taught at Saint Patrick for 37 years, and he has served as the Science Department Chairman for the last 22 years. This August, Mr. Will won’t have to return to Saint Patrick to prepare for another school year. The breaking of a cycle that he has lived for nearly four decades may not come easily, “for the last several years I have traveled in Mexico in the summer. This year I’m not coming back until late September.”