No More Skeletons in the Closet

Forget the dusty plastic leg, torso and skeleton models clattering around from hooks in the back of the labs. Their usefulness in the anatomy lab is coming to a close. Instead, turn down the lights and illuminate the beating heart, manipulate the moving circulatory system, or bring the cadaver of a man who died of cancer back to digital life and watch his tumors grow.

The Swain Family School of Science and Mathematics is now using an Anatomage table and learning system that enables cadets and students to examine real medical case studies with a technology that transforms cadavers into digital living bodies that function and respond as a real patient would.

“The virtual dissection table unscrambles the complex layers of the human body for cadets and students getting degrees in biology, nursing, or health and human performance,” said Physiology Professor Clinton Moran, Ph.D. “The potential for cross-disciplinary learning through our new Anatomage technology is also expansive.”

In addition to the dissection table, a large wall screen shows the entire class what those at the table are doing. Moran’s class was one of the first to use the Anatomage table in the college’s new Anatomy and Physiology Lab this fall.