Rationale for Development: Cross-sectional
Anatomy Instruction c. 1992
Development Issues
Technical Issues: Hardware and
Software
Cross-sectional Anatomy Tutor
Demonstration
Summary of Program Features
Cross-sectional Anatomy Tutor, the
instructional application that incorporates images from the
Visible Human data set, is available on CD-ROM for Windows only.
For ordering information, please refer to the
Ana
tomyCD Web page.
Out-dated Materials
First, we were using a number of outdated materials, such as old
CTs. Our access to and mastery of clinical images, particularly
MRIs, was limited.
Materials of Limited
Usefulness
Embedded body sections were only marginally useful,
Labels Awkward/Overwhelming in
Atlases Inadequate Images for Testing
and students
found the "porcupine" approach to labeling images in most
cross-sectional atlases awkward and overwhelming. The extent of
a structure often was not apparent, particularly on CTs and MRIs.
Students also found it difficult to orient to cross-sectional
images.
Lack of Correlated CTs or MRIs
The lack of exact
correspondence between clinical images and body sections in
Atlases made comparison cumbersome and inefficient.
Finally, our testing
methods were unsatisfactory because of the low quality of
reproduced images that were available to us.
One-to-One or Small Group Approach
Some of these problems
could be solved by working with students one-on-one, or in small
groups of 2 or 3 students. However, finite lab contact and staff
time limited the efficacy of this approach.
With support from the School of Medicine and in conjunction with the Division of Audiovisual Education at Duke, we developed a prototype of a cross-sectional anatomy computer tutorial. We were able to obtain permission to use the Nasco Life/form (NASCO, Fort Atkinson, WI) abdomen images in-house. However, these images were not ideal for our purposes because there were a limited number of levels available, and copyright restrictions on these images were a potential problem for distributing the program to other medical schools. Furthermore, the NASCO images did not include correlated CTs or MRIs, and the images were from one elderly male individual with poor muscular development and some significant pathology, including a missing kidney.
When we learned in 1993 of the forthcoming Visible Human images, we quickly realized that these images represented a significant improvement for our purposes over the NASCO images: