TOLEDO, Ohio — Over the last couple of months, students in the Medical Academy at the Whitmer Career and Technology Center have brought their books to life with a new anatomy table.
"It's definitely like a big computer. We are one of the very few high schools in the area (with this technology). I think only a couple more have this table. So we are very very fortunate that the students can learn this way," said Medical Academy teacher Kate Sheppard.
The Anatomage Table is a 3-D virtual human dissection table. There's no real person, but it's the next best thing to working with an actual cadaver.
"It's so cool. I love to be able to look at everything in a 360. I get to move it all around. It's almost as if you're having the real thing," said senior Hailey Fisher.
"We can turn this on there. So we can see every angle, every part. We can cut it open. It's awesome," said senior Harmony Whitman.
The technology allows the high school students to visualize and learn the human body, the same way they would if the cadaver were beneath their hands.
"It definitely sets us apart. I feel like we can totally benefit from it especially when we go into college. We'll have a lot more experience than the other high schools around us," Whitman said.
Sheppard says her students are truly able to see the inside of a body because the people used for the virtual dissection table were real people who donated their bodies to science.
"They'll understand the anatomy, not just memorize it. Which, I think, is a really, really hard thing to do. They will understand how the body works," Sheppard said.
Sheppard says using this table allows the high school students to get a jump and learn what college sophomore and juniors are learning right now in the classroom.