Picture this ...World’s first 3D anatomy guide brought to life

IRISH researchers have created the world’s first 3D surface anatomy guide for medical and physiotherapy students, surgical trainees and artists.

Funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI), the two-year project will soon be part of the curriculum for medical students in Dublin.

The collaboration resulted in an online 3D guide which shows the motions of muscles and the sites of structures from the surface inwards.

The aim of the guide is to show how, by using movement, colour, illustration and 3D technology, anatomists, engineers and artists can collaborate to teach the body from the outside in.

Professor Clive Lee, Head of the Department of Anatomy at RCSI, said computer aided learning is an elegant and cost-effective solution for medical students.

“It gives them access to a 3D representation of the human body and helps mitigate the traditional constraints of medical education such as a lack of willing live models.”

“Surface anatomy is the basis of clinical examination and students must learn where to listen to the heart, the markings of the liver, the sites of incisions and the movements of joints — the site of everything from the outside in.”

The guide is about to be launched for surgical trainees in RCSI and in the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa. In 2012, it will be used as the basis for teaching anatomy to artists in the Royal Hibernian Academy school.