Virtual Anatomy Lab Provides Students Array of Opportunities

A Virtual Anatomy Lab recently opened in the Sullivan Hall Experimental Learning Commons.

Students and faculty from various departments and majors will utilize the lab and its technology. These groups include health-science students, educators and other aspiring healthcare professionals.

According to Brenda Guzic, Director of the Experimental Learning Commons, the Virtual Anatomy Lab contains four virtual dissection Anatomage Tables, along with the HoloAnatomy Software Suite.

This suite is equipped with mixed-reality visors and audio-visual technology.

“With the Anatomage Tables, students will be able to conduct virtual dissections on images of real-life bodies that were donated for science,” said Guzic.

“These interactive tables – with three-dimensional views of real human bodies – allow students to visualize anatomy as they would on a cadaver.”

The HoloAnatomy Software Suite, created in conjunction with experts from Cleveland Clinic, Microsoft and Case Western University, provides SFU students the opportunity to work with state-of-the-art technology.

“The HoloAnatomy Software Suite gives students 3D perspectives of every part of the body, offering views impossible through any other means,” said Guzic.

“Students will be able to visualize anatomical structures, systems and even difficult-to-see anatomy such as the diaphragm, nervous and circulatory systems.”

Physical therapy major Monica Gregg said it is exciting to use the technology in the Virtual Anatomy Lab. And educational.

“It has been very helpful using the Anatomage Tables to supplement what we have been learning in anatomy lecture so far this semester,” said Gregg.

“The Virtual Anatomy Lab has been helping me get a ‘big-picture understanding’ of the human body.”

Funding for the Virtual Anatomy Lab came from the University, the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the A.J. and Sigismunda Palumbo Charitable Trust.