HoloAnatomy: your high-tech supplement to cadavers

By Sheena R. Sagales

Are you an aspiring doctor? If yes, chances are, you will go through the rite of passage for every medical student: dissecting a cadaver.

Studying corpses is a vital learning experience about the human body for future physicians and other allied health professionals. Moreover, cadaver-based teaching helps students to be physically, intellectually, and emotionally prepared for the challenges when they practice their profession.

CGI/P1

CGIs are typically used in modern movies, especially right after the 2000s came into the picture—the technology became more advanced with the things they can do. In photography, CGI allows manipulation, even without your subject being physically present. It emphasizes the beauty of technology and gives life to people's imagination. From multiple layers and adjustments, CGI provides out-of-the-world outcome projects.

However, did you know that some parts of the world are experiencing a shortage of cadavers? For example, Nairobi University in Kenya—even with its bodydonation program—only receives two to three bodies each year due to the lack of awareness of the program.

Solution? Reduce the need for cadavers, which is essentially what Case Western Reserve University's (CWRU) School of Medicine is working on through virtual reality.

However, technology could have a downfall,

Anatomically virtual.

Via Microsoft HoloLens, the CWRU School of Medicine launched a VR medical training program named HoloAnatomy Software Suite that utilizes mixed-reality technology to show the human body from a three-Dimensional perspective.

Ilumis Incorporated was then launched to help CWRU spread the usage of the virtual learning platform to as many anatomy programs as possible.

"Now universities can reduce the expensive, time-consuming task of obtaining cadavers, and students can enter a world of new possibilities where they learn faster, retain more vital information, and transcend the classroom with unprecedented collaborative potential,” Ilumis CEO Mark Day told LifeWire.

More zooming, less dissection.

Medical students wear the HoloLens headset to examine a full-scale virtual model of the human. Through the software, learners can work on the macro and microscopic levels of anatomy.

"Unlike the cadaver lab, where the preserved body's colors and textures can make it difficult to discern, say, a nerve from a blood vessel—or to see a lymph node—HoloAnatomy gives students a crystal clear 3-D map of these anatomical structures and their relationships to each other,"

Mark Griswold, a professor at the CWRU School of

Medicine highlighted in an email interview with LifeWire.

With the students able to zoom in on the fine details of each body part, universities are looking into the possibility of merging anatomy and histology courses into one in their curriculum.

Noninteractive interaction. Dexterity is a crucial skill for health professionals, which is an apparent flaw in HOLOANATOMY/ P3 as well. Nowadays, it is hard to distinguish what a specific visual looks like. For example, a CGI-loaded promotional video or photo is sometimes destructive— the brand might end up alluring people too much with their services.

Nevertheless, CGI has drastically improved the entertainment and media industry in ways one could’ve never thought of in the olden days. With just a few edits here and there, film producers can now either merge reality with fantasy or create the former with the latter.