HoloAnatomy Suite: The Potential for Innovation in CDU Students’ Anatomy Training
In planning its new curriculum for the incoming medical school, CDU has made the decision to eliminate the traditional cadaver lab, previously the time-honored way to teach anatomy. This move is similar to what other universities are doing as they plan to implement important new innovations.
According to Dr. Rosalyn Ferguson, CDU Professor of Surgery,“ We’ re looking at a number of technologies that can still give students a very rich experience in understanding the human body from an anatomical perspective. One of them is HoloAnatomy,” she noted.
Officially dubbed the HoloAnatomy Suite by its inventor, Cleveland-based Case Western Reserve University, the technology was recently presented in a series of demonstrations for campus faculty by Nancy Farrow, Director of Global Sales for the HoloAnatomy project. She was assisted in the presentation by Instructional Designer Sue Shick who provided insight via Zoom feed.
HoloAnatomy is a comprehensive technology program featuring images of the entire body that can be projected through a Microsoft-based HoloLens that creates a mixed reality condition where participants actually see a hologram of the entire human body.
The technology suite showcases an innovative digital anatomy tool that augments or even supplants the traditional cadaver lab. There is the potential to increase the learning process twice as fast, with as much as a 40 % increased retention rate, according to Farrow.“ The emphasis is on‘ medicine as a team sport’,” she added. The technology increases the potential of an interdisciplinary approach to anatomy training, as professionals from different disciplines can readily work more closely together.
The device is dependent on using physical gestures to start, stop, and operate. Participants wear headsets, which adds to the variety of commands that can be executed. Viewers can look inside the skeleton to the inner body parts. Written guides rendered in 3D view offer a description of the muscle and skeletal grouping selected for study. Instructors must preprogram a given lesson.
A wide variety of tools are available. The designer tool that is an integral part of the suite allows all content to be customized. Images can be magnified to focus on details. Recording is an available tool, but playback occurs in 2D. HoloAnatomy is mobile and can be used in a variety of locations.
Dr. Ferguson noted that HoloAnatomy has distinctive, unique qualities differentiated from other comparable technologies.“ Unlike virtual reality, while viewing the HoloLens subject matter you can see the rest of the room around you. When you put on a virtual reality headset, you’ re only looking at the virtual world,” she observed.
Through a HoloLens headset, you can see the hologram of the human body.“ It’ s a very effective way to teach anatomy to a group. You can peel off layers of the body. For example, you can look in depth within the kidney as you walk through the presentation. The other body parts can be studied in the same way. It
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