“Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s program is hands down the best program in the state,â€� Atkinson says. “Our cohorts are the perfect class size for becoming friends with our classmates and for getting individualized attention from any of our professors if we need it.â€�

Although it took him three years to get accepted, the wait was worth it. This fall, Atkinson became one of the first students to use the program’s new Anatomage Virtual Dissection Table, which gives him a tremendous advantage over most other D.P.T. students in the country.

The Anatomage is essentially an 8-foot iPad, but the technology inside makes it a virtual operating table. Using images of real human cadavers, students can virtually dissect full-size 3-D images of a man or a woman. A touch of the screen removes various layers of the body, revealing the bones, the muscles, the nerves and the veins and arteries. Another touch rotates the images, and a swipe of the finger makes a digital cut displaying just what a student would see on a physical cadaver. The table also allows students to use digital instruments to see the effects they would have on muscles and tissues.

Although Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has one of the first D.P.T. programs to adopt the new technology, Program Director Patrick Pabian, D.P.T., had his eye on an Anatomage table for a while. After the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine purchased one, he talked with anatomist Andy Payer, Ph.D., who gave the table a very positive report. The Anatomage will help prepare surgeons, but in Pabian’s eyes, it will provide equal or possibly even more value for his physical therapy students, who must have a high level of knowledge in anatomy for their professional practice.

The table is one of the ways Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s program is an innovator among D.P.T. programs nationwide. Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ already was unique by having its own anatomy lab that is not shared with other programs such as medicine or dentistry. The Anatomage is housed in this lab, a restricted-access room in the College of Health and Public Affairs, where D.P.T. students have 24/7 access to it. Images from the table also can be projected for all students to see during class, another helpful option.

The Anatomage will not replace physical dissections or textbooks, but it will allow students to learn in alternate ways.

“We feel that cadaver anatomy is essential to learning the interrelationships of the systems in the body from a three dimensional perspective,� Pabian explains. “Since physical therapy is a ‘hands-on’ profession, we strongly feel that the best way to learn anatomy is to perform dissections.�

Pabian was advised to turn his students loose on the machine and let them discover just what it could do. And that’s what he did. Each day presents new learning opportunities for the students, who are “finding more and more features of this technology faster than the speed of light,� he says.

“Using the new Anatomage for the first time was like trying to figure out a giant jigsaw puzzle,� says Atkinson. “Learning what each function did in each situation was not only a ton of fun, it was a great way to learn and review different organ systems within the body.�

Local first-year D.P.T. student Kyle Perkins thought the table felt like a big toy at first — a very practical, educational toy. He finds it useful that he can virtually dissect a human body — or several bodies — before performing on a real cadaver. He and Atkinson agree that it’s helpful to practice virtually beforehand.

“In the anatomy lab, there are times when we accidentally cut through or cut out an important piece of anatomy that we’re supposed to be learning,� Atkinson says. “When this happens, now we can reference the Anatomage and see what it was supposed to look like in the body.“

The students also are discovering that the table is improving their knowledge of the arteries and nerves throughout the body, which is difficult to learn through two-dimensional textbooks.  “It labels everything for you in three dimensions that books are unable to do,� Perkins says. “The images are real cadaver photos, and PT students are better able to visualize structures in space with this machine.�

Anatomy classes won’t be the only option where students can work with this cutting-edge technology. Pabian sees many uses for the Anatomage in the D.P.T. program, including courses in neuroscience, physiology, radiology, cardiopulmonary physical therapy and orthopedic physical therapy. “It will reinforce the importance of truly understanding the anatomic basis of neuromusculoskeletal and medical pathologies that cause impairments in mobility and limitations in overall function.�

Unlike most medical schools, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ doesn’t tell first-year students how their cadaver died. Instead, students must play detective during their 17 weeks in a state-of-the-art anatomy lab run by Professor Andrew Payer. During lab, students scrutinize the organ systems, pathologies and even cell samples of their first patient, the remains of people who have willed their bodies to science.

This year, Payer invited the renowned Dr. G to participate in judging the autopsy reports. “As medical examiner, Dr. Garavaglia serves our community in everything she does,� said Dr. Deborah German, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the College of Medicine. “We are honored she has volunteered to share her expertise with our students.�

After each presentation, Dr. Garavaglia read the patient’s actual death certificate. In one instance, the students believed their patient had died of ischemic heart failure. “In looking at the death certificate, I wish this doctor would have consulted with you,� she said. “He just put down everything he knew about the patient – hypertension, diabetes, cardiac arrhythmia – and figured one of those must have caused his death.�

Dr. Garavaglia presented the top award to Team 13 – Students Galal Elsayed, Giorgio Guiulfo, Michelle Hidalgo, Rikin Patel, Erin Purdy, Morgan Stines and Megan Vu, who found that their patient, a 55-year-old woman, had died from pneumonia related to lung cancer.

After the awards, Dr. Garavaglia attended a reception and posed for pictures with students and members of the College of Medicine’s Assessment Team, who tallied the scores of the autopsy reports. Dr. G’s response to the day of forensic reports: “Today I was so impressed,� she said.

Parsons, director of Anatomical Facilities at the medical school, is spreading the word through talks with local groups and unveiled the outreach plan to colleagues November 29.

“I get calls every day about the program,� she said.

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is one of three medical schools in Florida that is state-approved to receive willed bodies to train medical students. Until a year ago, people who wanted to will their bodies to medical science had to have their remains sent to the University of Florida in Gainesville or the University of Miami. Through its approved receiving sites, the Anatomical Board of Florida provides donated bodies for the training of physicians, dentists, physician assistants, and other health workers.

“The procedure for donating a body is simple,� Parsons said.

A donor, who must be 18 or older, fills out a dedication form stating his or her wishes. Copies of “Instructions to Survivors� should be given to relatives and close friends so that the donor’s wishes are known. The donor or family then contacts a funeral home to arrange for handling of the body and transportation to Orlando. Funeral-home expenses are paid by the family, but the Anatomical Board assumes costs for storage, cremation and final disposal of the cremains.

Bodies are kept for up to two years for medical education and research, Parsons said. Bodies are then cremated, and the ashes returned to the family, or the family may choose to have the ashes spread over the Gulf of Mexico.

Individuals who donate their bodies make a real difference in the education of medical students, said Dr. Andrew Payer, professor of anatomy and director of the College of Medicine’s Willed-Body Program.

“Computer modeling can’t account for all the differences among human bodies,� Dr. Payer said, adding the Willed-Body Program “provides a richer learning experience for students. “

Details about the willed-body program can be found at med.ucf.edu/giving/willed-body-program/. Groups interested in having Parsons talk with them can contact her at 407.266.1142 or Jennifer.Parsons@ucf.edu.

With the opening of its new medical education building on August 2, 2010, the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s College of Medicine’s vision is to be the nation’s premier 21st century college of medicine—a national leader in education, research and patient care, recognized for supporting and empowering its students and faculty to realize their passion for discovery, healing, health and life, and for its ability to create partnerships to transform medical education and health care.

To that end, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ called on Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America and CyberTouch to create monitors that provide sharp, brilliant images in difficult environments.

“The Mitsubishi monitors with CyberTouch’s touch-screens make a positive and dramatic impact on learning,â€� said Ron Knappenberger, assistant director, educational technology, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine. “We’re the first medical school built from the ground up in the last 30 years, and our environmental focus and our technology proves it.â€�

Knappenberger met with Mitsubishi and CyberTouch to develop a unique integrated LCD monitor with a low environmental impact that could withstand environments such as those created during cadaver dissections.

“Anyone who watches a detective show on TV is familiar with this type of lab,� said James Chan, senior marketing director, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America. “So we created a product that would withstand fluid and other sorts of materials that can be hostile to technology but are so important to students in medicine and scientific research.�

CyberTouch’s integrated overlay on the Mitsubishi LDT332V LCD monitor looks like a regular digital signage monitor, but the overlay neatly fits inside the bezel, directly on top of the screen. Touch is super-sensitive in spite of the industrial-grade coating that can withstand students’ soiled gloved hands.

The professor’s station is in the middle of a curved (XX) square-foot laboratory, which has four IP-addressable cameras and a monitor poised over a gurney. During class, the teacher can display exactly what he or she is doing; students can watch demonstrations, track dissection progress, research information on the Internet, take notes, and make annotations on the monitors suspended above their own stations, all in real time.

Source: infoCom.org,