HOSA students learn from new Anatomage software

Sahaj Datta | The Chronicle

A new technology is bringing the human body to life digitally, marking a turning point in the future of medical education, and Mason students will get to be a part of it. Anatomage is a medical equipment manufacturer that focuses on digitizing anatomy and physiology to bring better education to more medical students. They have created a table that allows for interaction with a digitized, life-sized version of human anatomy. The Anatomage company sponsors Health Occupational Students of America (HOSA) events for medical students across the country, hosting a multitude of competitions that allow students to compete using the Anatomage table. Principles of Biomedical Sciences and Human Body Systems teacher Kevin Baumann is the advisor for the Mason High School HOSA chapter. His students will be competing in the HOSA Ohio State Leadership Conference on April 9 and 10, and several of them will be competing using the Anatomage technology. “Anatomage is a software and hardware developed to help get high-quality forensic imaging and internal anatomy imaging to more students,” Baumann said. “What the company does is they make tables and upload images from bodies onto these tables so that you can see all the body systems. They basically stored [the bodies] in a gel, and then they took like 8000 slices per body.” Baumann said Great Oaks has an outdated version of the Anatomage software that allows students to put the imaging of the body up on the screen so they can interact with it, which they have been rotating between high schools participating in the Biomedical program. He said that even using the outdated version of the program is unlike anything he has used in his Biomedical classes and that it is a beneficial tool for the HOSA students who will be competing with the newer version of the software at the Ohio State Leadership Conference. “It’s a nice way to get a hands-on approach to looking at body systems and stuff without having to be in a cadaver lab [doing] hard dissections,” Baumann said. “It helps us to get that extra visual piece. And then, for the students who are participating in the HOSA competitive event, up at [the regional competition], we were able to see what the actual product looks like.” Junior Niyati Kathuria is one of the competitors for Anatomage at the HOSA state competition. She said the software was unlike anything she had seen before and found it interesting to work with. “It’s a very realistic way to apply what we’ve learned in our anatomy class,” Kathuria said. “What we learn in [that class] is very complex, and it’s hard to visualize that stuff on an actual body. And since we’re still not doing it on an actual body, this is the closest we can get to learning about the body as accurately as possible.” Junior Shreya Singh will be competing on a team with Kathuria and other Mason students. Singh said the Anatomage table was not just a digital copy of the human body but also a great tool to learn about anatomy with many features. “The table is also really cool because not only does it show you the [body parts] but it also shows you their functions,” Singh said. “So if you click on the heart, it’ll tell you the different functions, what does what and how things move around. It’s very interactive in the sense that you can zoom in and out, while on an actual cadaver, you’d have to cut through different layers.” Kathuria said that when HOSA students compete using Anatomage, they will not only need to know human body systems in detail, but they will also need to know how to work with the Anatomage technology. She said this has caused some struggles while her team prepares for the competition. “Right now, we have limited access to the Anatomage program because we don’t have an actual table,” Kathuria said. “So the preparation we’re doing right now is studying each anatomical part that we assigned to each other, as well as using a digital app to replicate the program since we don’t have the table.” Junior Swikruti Dash is another HOSA competitor for Anatomage. She said there are significant differences between the outdated software she has had experience using versus the newer version that she interacted with for the first time at the HOSA regional competition. “The newer version is so in-depth, [and] you don’t have to go through every single layer [of the body],” Dash said. “Going through every layer takes up so much time, and because we have a time limit for every question, we have to make sure we’re accurate.” Dash said she is excited to compete in Anatomage at the competition and believes the technology is a turning point in medicine. She said the table feels like an in-depth version of the topics she learns in her Honors Anatomy and Physiology class. “You can take off every layer, every muscle and every organ,” Dash said. “It’s like going into a dark room, and it’s just you and the body.” Singh said that although they currently do not regularly have access to an Anatomage table itself, her experience with it has shown her how important this kind of technology is for the future. “Cadavers are not accessible, and at the end of the day, it’s someone who donated their body to science, which is rare,” Singh said. “Anatomage lets you learn practically everything about the body in one space rather than through multiple cadavers. Anatomage makes [medical education] more accessible, and I know it’s going to change the future of medical education.”