Gone are the days of relying on pictures in textbooks to learn about human anatomy. With the addition of an Anatomage Table, students at the Washington County Career Center (WCCC) can learn the ins and outs of the human body in a new way.

The fully interactive table, made by Anatomage, allows students to digitally visualize what is beneath their skin by featuring life-size replicas of humans. Students can rotate, cross-section, and animate the bodies to learn how the various systems and processes work.

Ashley Hardesty, WCCC’s STNA Instructor, demonstrated the Table’s capabilities.

“When you look at a book, you just see pictures. It's not 3D, it's not movable, and it’s not touchable. I'm a hands-on person. I want to touch and see. With this Table, if I see something and I can’t think of what it is, I can tap the screen and it tells me what it is. It’s an absolutely amazing teaching tool.”

The Table allows for exploration and learning of human anatomy beyond what any cadaver could offer. They currently have four renderings that can be fully explored, including a pregnant woman.

“This is amazing because you know how a baby looks, but you never get the opportunity to see the baby inside the amniotic sac…I can turn on cardiovascular and then you can watch his little heartbeat and you can zoom in and see the blood flow. You can even watch his EKG and see how he’s doing.”

These 3D models are created using thousands of high-resolution MRI and CT scans and can be virtually dissected. Hardesty demonstrated how cuts could be made and then simply undone.

“It’s amazing to be able to do this and utilize it over and over. When you’re working with a cadaver, once you make a cut you can’t undo it, and only a limited number of students can see what you’re doing.”

Each body also comes with a bit of the person’s history to emphasize the human element.

“They all come with histories, so you do know a little bit about them. This man was in prison and realized that he was a burden to society. He decided to donate his body to science as a way to give back. You can actually see the bruising and mark from the lethal injection.”

Hardesty says that the students love this new method of learning, and the table can be used to test students’ knowledge as well.

“There's a program where I can pull up whatever system we're working on and I can pin different things. It turns into a quiz for the students. When I ask them to tell me where the liver is, they have to pick that pin and type in liver.”

Approximately 125 high school students will use the Anatomage Table each year, in addition to 60-80 students from the STNA & Patient Care Tech Adult Technical Training program.

“This table will help improve the future of healthcare. We have to have health care; it’s a job that is never going to go away. We aim to give students the best educational opportunities, and this helps tremendously.”