Oct 14, 2026 · 34 min · 15 segments
!The Human Remains Have you ever wondered what it’s like to go to medical school, take apart cadavers, take exhaustive exams over…
Uh, so today we're talking about a book called The Human Remains, uh, by Nathan Gray, who is a doctor.
Uh, but he wrote and drew the graphic novel, and I guess he's published other cartoons and I think that it's his first graphic novel, but he's done smaller cartoons that were published.
So he is now, uh, working in palliative care, and this, uh, this graphic novel is about his kind of journey through medical school and, uh, going through kind of a low point where he felt like, uh, he had lost all the inspiration and passion he had for being a doctor, uh, but then kind of rediscovers it at the end.
And palliative care is, like, just helping people, you know, reduce pain or other symptoms and not actually curing anything.
And at first, he thought that sounded depressing, and other people that he talks to, who are not doctors, think it sounds depre- depressing.
Uh, but it turns out that he doesn't feel that way at all.
Yes, it's very beautiful.
His, his sort of conclusion is that it's about putting a person's life in context and giving meaning to the life that's been lived, and maybe sitting with that person and, uh, experiencing that with them and sharing that moment with them.
I think that's a really beautiful, um, summation of palliative care.
Hmm.
So, uh, the, the comic book is very interesting in that respect because he's able to use the comic book panels not just to do, I think, quite well-defined, um, studies of him and his colleagues in hospital settings, but then there's also these dream sequences-
Hmm, hmm
... involving the cadaver, um, which is named Opal, and w- there's a whole story involving Opal.
Um-
Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to spoil the ending of that story.
That's, that's-
I, we don't want to spoil it
... very, very interesting
But there's a, there's a sort of, um, a, a, a b- a cadaver that's being worked on by medical students, and they, they sort of personify the cadaver.
Mm-hmm.
So they name it Opal.
And then he starts having dreams.
The dreams occur from a very early point in the star, so I don't think that's a spoiler.
Yeah.
Uh, so today we're talking about a book called The Human Remains, uh, by Nathan Gray, who is a doctor.
Uh, but he wrote and drew the graphic novel, and I guess he's published other cartoons and I think that it's his first graphic novel, but he's done smaller cartoons that were published.
So he is now, uh, working in palliative care, and this, uh, this graphic novel is about his kind of journey through medical school and, uh, going through kind of a low point where he felt like, uh, he had lost all the inspiration and passion he had for being a doctor, uh, but then kind of rediscovers it at the end.
And palliative care is, like, just helping people, you know, reduce pain or other symptoms and not actually curing anything.
And at first, he thought that sounded depressing, and other people that he talks to, who are not doctors, think it sounds depre- depressing.
Uh, but it turns out that he doesn't feel that way at all.
Yes, it's very beautiful.
His, his sort of conclusion is that it's about putting a person's life in context and giving meaning to the life that's been lived, and maybe sitting with that person and, uh, experiencing that with them and sharing that moment with them.
I think that's a really beautiful, um, summation of palliative care.
Hmm.
So, uh, the, the comic book is very interesting in that respect because he's able to use the comic book panels not just to do, I think, quite well-defined, um, studies of him and his colleagues in hospital settings, but then there's also these dream sequences-
Hmm, hmm
... involving the cadaver, um, which is named Opal, and w- there's a whole story involving Opal.
Um-
Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to spoil the ending of that story.
That's, that's-
I, we don't want to spoil it
... very, very interesting
But there's a, there's a sort of, um, a, a, a b- a cadaver that's being worked on by medical students, and they, they sort of personify the cadaver.
Mm-hmm.
So they name it Opal.
And then he starts having dreams.
The dreams occur from a very early point in the star, so I don't think that's a spoiler.
Yeah.
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