Thoughts on the Anatomage

[dingbat14]

I know some schools are moving towards the Anatomage including one I'm going to attend this fall. It's essentially a giant iPad with a cadaver on it for those of you who are unfamiliar with it. These will replace real cadavers in anatomy lab, giving students more freedom to rotate the body around and zoom in/out wherever.

I wanted to hear some opinions about it; I see some definite pros, such as not having to deal with formaldehyde stench and well, it just looks hella cool. One con is that obviously it isn't a real body, and wondering if that will be an issue down the line.

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[joker2400]

WTF is the point of anatomy lab then? I can do all that with an app on my iPad

 

[Planes2Doc]

It would make practicals way easier! I would be all for it.

 

[VisionaryTics]

It's like there's a war on medical education, waged by dingbat administrative *****s who would rather have another pub or promotion than think critically about how to improve the product coming out of medical schools

 

[MedWonk]

My school has an anatomage, but it definitely isn't replacing anatomy dissection anytime soon. I think the hope (here, anyway) is that it might be used more as a learning tool for surgery residents, but it doesn't seem like it's caught on. Right now, it's basically a seldom used expensive toy that they occasionally show off interviewees and med students. It is kind of cool, though.

 

[mcloaf]

I think if you're not going to use real cadavers you may as well dispense with the pretense of having anatomy labs. Just give students Netter's/Thieme/whatever and laugh about the money you saved not running an anatomy lab while their tuition continues to increase every year.

 

[awared2]

Human bodies aren't perfect, and I think that is what makes gross dissection so useful. I don't know how useful it would be to look at perfect anatomy.

 

[Kahreek]

kids these day. in my old days we had had to kill the specimen ourselves.

 

[Wordead]

Oh good, now 3rd years will be even more clueless when they're on surgery.

 

[operaman]

I think using them to replace cadavers would be a big mistake, but could be a useful adjunct to a traditional anatomy course. There are some real benefits to cadaveric dissections that I think you'll miss with these.

1) Cadaveric dissection is hard. Really hard. S--t in there ain't labeled or nuthin'. Is that a nerve or just fascia? The process of struggling forces you to learn relationships with other structures and figure things out. You just can't get this with a virtual dissection.

2) 3-dimensionsal knowledge is important. You ultimately need to know what's where and have a general tactile idea of how things are related. From your physical exam to line placement to XYZ-centesis to surgical procedures, you need to be comfortable with 3D relationships. I would worry that some of this might be lost. I think people would ultimately learn it, but it would add yet another thing to learn later when you have less time.

3) There's a psychological aspect to cutting on a real body that I feel was important and would be lost with this.

4) You think anatomy lab stinks, wait until you meet real patients! Makes anatomy lab seem like potpourri!

There's a trend in education and now in medical education that I like to call 'teaching to the lowest common denominator.' People will justify this by saying that many students report not learning much in the lab, but maybe those are just crappy students that phoned it in and did the bare minimum to pass. It's just like you hear some people talk about cutting out the 4th year of med school because it's useless and many students don't do much, but some students load up with tough rotations and learn a ton. Maybe the answer is not acquiescing to the students who just phone it in.

 

[Psai]

This is an amazing tool, it will really help students understand the anatomy of the patients in the operations they participate in as they will virtually rotate the patient's body around in real low and zoom in to see the structures clearly without ever having seen a scalpel before

 

[PL198]

how is this beneficial at all compared to anatomy lab? like we could make computerized interactions instead of SP interviews, but I don't really see how that would help anything.

I feel like these administrators won't be done until students can sit at their house from the beginning of m1-m4 without ever having to interact with another human being and get their degree.

you know whats better than simulators? actually doing something

 

[Frazier]

It's a cool technology. I can see its utility as something secondary to the human cadaver -- say, as a good tool to review towards the end of the block [when everything starts looking like minced dried jerky].

I would be willing to pay more tuition during MS-1 year to have this part of my curriculum.

I would be willing to pay exactly $25 more total for the year... That's about how much I would pay for a new book to experiment with. Fair.

IMHO, for an establishment so heavily rooted in "tradition", it would be kind of BS for them to do away with human cadavers. Kinda talking out both sides of the mouth there, medical education.

 

[tiedyeddog]

I would have liked that as an additional learning source. There is no way this should replace anatomy labs.

 

[animando]

1) don't see the point of doing it on a giant screen which costs $$$. A standard device can do the same.
2) don't even see the point of a tactile device (sorry Apple). You can't "slide to unlock" patients.
3) no 3D, no experience of texture of real tissues, no emotional experience, arteries aren't red and veins blue in real life, dead people aren't young, slender and "normal"
4) I'd love to go back to anatomy lab if I had the opportunity and the time. This iCadaver? I wouldn't take it even it were free. Better look at REAL clinical pictures (i.e. MRI and CT-scans) which aren't artificially colored.

 

[PL198]

I don't get how this is superior to any of the existing interactive atlases.

 

[masaraksh]

This is terrible. You can't even 'virtually dissect' along fascia planes - which is how it works in real life.

 

[alpinism]

how is this beneficial at all compared to anatomy lab? like we could make computerized interactions instead of SP interviews, but I don't really see how that would help anything.

I feel like these administrators won't be done until students can sit at their house from the beginning of m1-m4 without ever having to interact with another human being and get their degree.

you know whats better than simulators? actually doing something

If our administrators had their way we'd be doing PBL, standardized patient encounters, and professionalism seminars all day for 4 years.

"You can see patients and practice doing procedures during residency"

What a joke.

I'd stay far away from any med school that replaces anatomy lab with simulation centers and computer programs.

 

[pathologyDO]

Sounds like another way to reel in the next batch of gullible wanna be MS1s, but has no real benefit to students compared to traditional cadavers.

 

[MrGrrrMonster]

Just skimmed this, but I am pretty sure I had this as an undergrad. We had a "digitalized cadaver" in addition to our real cadaver. I would say it is useful to an extent but to replace a real cadaver would be a fallacy. The digitalized version sure helps, but there is no replacement for actually putting scalpel to skin.

 

[AlexMack12]

Let me preface this by saying I HATED gross anatomy. We're in a condensed curriculum at my school and we dissected four days a week. Sometimes our "day off" was a Monday so we would dissect four days in a row that week. Each day, I'd eat my lunch with dread, watching the clock creep towards That Time when I'd have to put on my scrubs and trudge the Last Mile to lab. I never got used to the smell, the freezing lab, or the fact that I was partaking in the cutting up of a human being. When I learned I passed the course, I'm not even kidding, I jumped up in the air. I hope I'm conveying how much I didn't like anatomy.

But you know what? Replacing hands-on gross anatomy with yet another simulation/app/computer program would be a terrible idea. Just because I detested anatomy doesn't mean I didn't understand that it was necessary and offered some real benefits that could not be obtained in any other way. Since anatomy did not come easily to me, and I had to study like the devil to successfully pass, I looked in many atlases and resources....and none truly mimicked the variety and intricacies of the real body. That was exactly the problem-I'd study so much and know the pictures inside and out (pun intended?); then I'd get to the real thing and be like, "WAT."

Everyone loves computers...and saving money...but some things simply can't be reduced to a simulation or a file or an app. And some things can't be skimped on.

Gross Anatomy needs to be part of medical student education in all of its emotionally disturbing, malodorous, intellectually torturous glory. It needs to remain to torment but also benefit future students. After all, it's part of what we signed up for.

 

[ZuluHotel]

Lots of groups in my anatomy lab had an iPad running a virtual atlas like this. They were useful but that's all it is, a virtual atlas. Putting it on a big screen doesn't change what it is or put anywhere close to being real dissection. The point of lab is to translate what you have learned from idealized diagrams/atlases/3d models into a real, messy, confusing-as-hell body.

 

[Jabbed]

I honestly never saw the point of cadaver lab now that we have radiographic imaging and anesthesia.

 

[Kelevra]

So...perhaps they can create an update in which you can actually see the anatomy of plenty of different patients! Maybe, for example, plug a USB into the iCadaver, and the other end into the rectum of any real cadaver you want to view. You could pump the testicles of the cadaver to zoom inside, and even rotate. Thus, you get variety, as well as pseudopractice manipulating instruments from the outside, for surgery.

And to solve @Psai's dilemma once in the OR, you could have the CRNA consistently flip and rotate the patient around like a damn gyroscope (to as closely simulate iPad medical school and be as realistic as possible), to help you get a better angle. Ahh, technology.

 

[PL198]

Lots of groups in my anatomy lab had an iPad running a virtual atlas like this. They were useful but that's all it is, a virtual atlas. Putting it on a big screen doesn't change what it is or put anywhere close to being real dissection. The point of lab is to translate what you have learned from idealized diagrams/atlases/3d models into a real, messy, confusing-as-hell body.

wtf who is going to bring their ipad into the gross lab. not a sane person thats for sure

 

[Jabbed]

So...perhaps they can create an update in which you can actually see the anatomy of plenty of different patients! Maybe, for example, plug a USB into the iCadaver, and the other end into the rectum of any real cadaver you want to view. You could pump the testicles of the cadaver to zoom inside, and even rotate. Thus, you get variety, as well as pseudopractice manipulating instruments from the outside, for surgery.

And to solve @Psai's dilemma once in the OR, you could have the CRNA consistently flip and rotate the patient around like a damn gyroscope (to as closely simulate iPad medical school and be as realistic as possible), to help you get a better angle. Ahh, technology.

 

[TheRobin]

Let me preface this by saying I HATED gross anatomy. We're in a condensed curriculum at my school and we dissected four days a week. Sometimes our "day off" was a Monday so we would dissect four days in a row that week. Each day, I'd eat my lunch with dread, watching the clock creep towards That Time when I'd have to put on my scrubs and trudge the Last Mile to lab. I never got used to the smell, the freezing lab, or the fact that I was partaking in the cutting up of a human being. When I learned I passed the course, I'm not even kidding, I jumped up in the air. I hope I'm conveying how much I didn't like anatomy.

But you know what? Replacing hands-on gross anatomy with yet another simulation/app/computer program would be a terrible idea. Just because I detested anatomy doesn't mean I didn't understand that it was necessary and offered some real benefits that could not be obtained in any other way. Since anatomy did not come easily to me, and I had to study like the devil to successfully pass, I looked in many atlases and resources....and none truly mimicked the variety and intricacies of the real body. That was exactly the problem-I'd study so much and know the pictures inside and out (pun intended?); then I'd get to the real thing and be like, "WAT."

Everyone loves computers...and saving money...but some things simply can't be reduced to a simulation or a file or an app. And some things can't be skimped on.

Gross Anatomy needs to be part of medical student education in all of its emotionally disturbing, malodorous, intellectually torturous glory. It needs to remain to torment but also benefit future students. After all, it's part of what we signed up for.

Agreed. Anatomy is a rite-of-passage for medical students, and getting rid of dissections completely in favor of Anatomage tables basically robs students of that experience.

 

[JP2740]

 

[ZuluHotel]

wtf who is going to bring their ipad into the gross lab. not a sane person thats for sure

What, because it might get some schmutz on it? Just put it in a ziploc bag. We had 4 people to a body so there was always someone not dissecting who could have clean hands to use atlases or ipads.

 

[NickNaylor]

If your school is actually going to replace anatomy lab with some nonsense like this, run far, far away. I say that as someone who really didn't enjoy anatomy. There's something to be said about going through a body and seeing structures with your own eyes.

 

[MedWonk]

wtf who is going to bring their ipad into the gross lab. not a sane person thats for sure

Whatever. I've moved the body around without gloves when studying for practicals. I've also scraped myself with the bone saw. Still haven't turned into a zombie. Bringing a phone or iPad seems fine as long as it gets wiped off. I'd say the cadaver is probably cleaner than I am with all that embalming fluid in it.

 

[Psai]

Whatever. I've moved the body around without gloves when studying for practicals. I've also scraped myself with the bone saw. Still haven't turned into a zombie. Bringing a phone or iPad seems fine as long as it gets wiped off. I'd say the cadaver is probably cleaner than I am with all that embalming fluid in it.

thats gross man
it's a dead person

 

[PL198]

Whatever. I've moved the body around without gloves when studying for practicals. I've also scraped myself with the bone saw. Still haven't turned into a zombie. Bringing a phone or iPad seems fine as long as it gets wiped off. I'd say the cadaver is probably cleaner than I am with all that embalming fluid in it.

when you do turn into a zombie, I'm ready

 

[NonTradJp]

I think Anatomage is very cool. For a person who worked a number of years in tech, I can see that being really helpful for visual learners like myself. This is assuming it loads and runs as fast as that demo.

 

[MedWonk]

when you do turn into a zombie, I'm ready

Do me a favor and use an M1 Garand. It's my fave. Have always wanted one.

thats gross man
it's a dead person

Throw the calvaria in some dishwater, dry it off, and throw some New England Clam Chowder in there