DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
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MEDICAL EDUCATIONDisappearing
Bodies
Simulations will replace
traditional cadaver dissections
in some medical schoolsIn 1231 Frederick II, the Holy Roman
Emperor who ruled over much of Europe,
issued a decree requiring schools that trained
doctors to hold a human body dissection
once every five years. It was a slow debut for
what would become a cornerstone of medi-
cal education. During the Renaissance,
cadaver dissections helped scientists and art-
ists gain a hands-on understanding of human
anatomy. Today they are an essential experi-
ence for first-year medical students, a time-
honored initiation into the secrets of our flesh.
Now, nearly a millennium after its mea-
sured introduction, cadaver dissection may
have begun an equally slow exit. This year a
few U.S. medical schools will offer their anat-
omy curriculum without any cadavers.
Instead their students will probe the human
body using three-dimensional renderings in
virtual reality, combined with physical repli-
cas of the organs and real patient medical
images such as ultrasound and CT scans.
The program developers hope technolo-
gy can improve on some of the limitations
of traditional approaches. It takes a long time
to dissect cadavers, and some body parts
are so inaccessible that they may be de -
stroyed in the process. Plus, the textures and
colors of an embalmed cadaver’s organs do
not match those of a living body, and donat-
ed bodies tend to be old and diseased. “If
you want to be truthful about anatomy edu-
cation, it hasn’t changed much since the
K ATERYNA KON Renaissance,” says James Young, chief aca-Getty Images