Ivy Tech offering virtual dissection
Anatomage table offers humane, affordable education; also, reverse job fair a success
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Health sciences have advanced greatly with the introduction of computer simulations that are able to train healthcare workers to interact with human beings without having to experiment with live people. Ivy Tech Community College in Kokomo is using this type of technology to let students learn about the human body without having one in the lab.
The Anatomage Virtual Dissection Table is a human-sized, touch-screen monitor table that can give Ivy Tech health science and nursing students the chance to work with a virtual human body and see how internal functions work. Professor Dr. Tammy Greene, Chair of Ivy Tech Kokomo Health Sciences thinks that the table is one of the best tools to teach anatomy and demonstrate how human systems work to students.
“The Anatomage is a virtual reality dissection simulation,” explained Greene. “Four human cadavers, people who donated their bodies to science, were cryogenically frozen and sliced into sections, about half the thickness of a piece of paper.”
The pieces then were photo-micro graphed and re-assembled by a computer into a rendering of a whole human being that can be taken apart and studied.
As gruesome as the process sounds the images are much like high quality illustrations that used to be in encyclopedias, with the ability to take off layers at a time to study human skin, tissue, organs and bones. The tables are in use in many medical and dental schools around the world, and Anatomage also has the ability to simulate many human processes like blood flow, breathing and digestion. The table has the ability to virtually pull out individual organs as well to rotate and study up close.
Ivy Tech has three Anatomage tables at its Kokomo and Logansport campuses, plus one at the Lewis Cass Polytechnic Pathway in Galveston for high school students prepping for college.
The $100,000 per-unit cost of the table actually saves the school money. Before, the dissection simulation Ivy Tech used a service that supplied dead animal carcasses for the students to dissect.
“It cost $6,000 per semester to buy the already dead animals,” noted Greene. “The tables are much cheaper in the long run and much more humane.”
Anatomage also gives free computer upgrades whenever there are changes to the system.
“Last year they brought in a whole new computer system to upgrade the tables,” added Greene. “It is well worth the cost.”
For careers in health sciences, simulations like these can give students real world experiences without endangering human lives at a fraction of the cost.
Reverse job fair brings employers to Ivy Tech nursing grads
Ivy Tech Community College’s Nursing Program held what was labeled a “reverse job fair” on April 21 with more than 28 prospective area health care employers interested in talking with graduating Ivy Tech nursing students. The students presented display boards on health care topics they were interested in along with their available resumes. The event counted as the student’s capstone project toward graduation.
Unlike a typical job fair where employers set up displays to interest job applicants, the reverse job fair turns the tables, having the student display what interests them and their resume information, answering questions from businesses looking for employees.
Hingst Hall on the Ivy Tech Kokomo campus had tables set up for the students as they assembled displays on topics that they were interested to help with talking points for the prospective employers as conversation starters.
“The students worked in pairs” said Chrystal Jones, Department Chair for Nursing at Ivy Tech Kokomo. “Our Dean of Nursing (Kelly Williams) came up with the idea during COVID, and it went over very well. Now that COVID levels are down, we are very excited to see employers coming back.”
Employers moved throughout the event, chatting and leaving their cards with the students as each pair shared what their display boards meant to them personally and professionally.
Graduating student Shaniqua Davis shared that her display topic, breast cancer, was personal for her as her child’s grandmother had recently been diagnosed and was going through treatment at this time.
When asked what she might be looking for in an employer, Davis replied she already was working in the field, but added that “It’s important to me to have an employer who cares about me.”
Davis’ table partner, Holly Foster, echoed that sentiment, adding “a good compensation package and adequate staffing” were also requirements she would look for in her future employers.