Illuminating Learning

By Dr. Susanne Wish-Baratz, Medical Anatomy Director at CWRU

Several years ago, when CWRU was planning the construction of a new medical-education facility, I was tasked with finding an innovative way to teach anatomy—essentially re-inventing a process that hasn’t changed since before the time of Da Vinci.

We were informed that the new building wouldn’t have wet labs, so my colleagues and I sought a substitute for traditional cadaveric dissection, reviewing dozens of modalities. Some were two dimensional and functionally limited. Others were just too difficult to use. Most lacked the anatomical detail required to prepare a medical student for clinical clerkships and residencies.

We began to fear there was simply no way to meet the needs of our class of 185 CWRU medical students without a traditional, expensive, time-consuming cadaver lab.

And then I experienced the potential of Mixed Reality.

When I put on a Microsoft HoloLens headset, I found myself surrounded by virtual walls, but was still able to make eye contact with my intrigued colleagues. While the view was interesting, I wondered, “Where’s the anatomy?”

It turned out there wasn’t any.

The promise of this mode of learning—sharing common, interactive 3D artifacts—was clear, so I worked with my colleagues and the CWRU Interactive Commons to create the HoloAnatomy® learning platform. Thanks to the efforts of a wonderful team of anatomists, physicians, artists, programmers, an instructional designer, and visionary physicist, we completed version one in 2019.

After more than 30 years of traditional anatomy instruction, my approach to education has been forever transformed by this remarkable holographic teaching tool.

As we developed the HoloAnatomy learning platform, we involved students to begin to gauge the efficacy of this approach to collaborative education, comparing student performance on cadavers vs. holograms. We found that students learned the material at least as fast, if not faster, using the app. In a preliminary study, we also found evidence that students retain more material for longer periods of time when combining cadaveric dissection with HoloAnatomy software.

In the summer of 2019, we moved to our new Health Education Campus and started teaching with HoloAnatomy. Soon after we were informed that our students would not be returning to campus due to the COVID 19 pandemic. With the support of numerous volunteers and Microsoft, we distributed HoloLens devices to all 185 of our students who were sheltering throughout the nation, and as a result we were able to continue seamlessly teaching anatomy—extraordinary timing!

My colleagues and I are still learning how to teach twenty-first century students with this innovative, powerful modality. Classroom feedback has been an essential part of our learning curve, and we continue to improve the platform.

Each curriculum varies, and the beauty of HoloAnatomy is that it can be adapted to any anatomy curriculum, from elementary school through medical or dental school. It can also be used by medical and allied health professionals and anyone who is required to understand human anatomy.

I’m grateful to my colleagues at Case Western Reserve University for their tireless efforts to help transform HoloAnatomy from a far-off idea to an invaluable teaching tool.  We are proud to share our creation with you and look forward to learning and expanding the HoloAnatomy learning platform as it becomes a ubiquitous teaching tool, revolutionizing medical education.

AlensiaXR: Your Partner in Transforming Medical Education

HoloAnatomy software empowers educators to transcend the classroom through synchronous in-person and remote learning, creating customized lessons to explore anatomy by system, region, and organs, including side-by-side comparisons of male and female bodies. AlensiaXR was formed as the exclusive licensee to help CWRU extend these applications into every graduate and undergraduate medical education program in the world. We seek to forever change the way students learn. Learn more at AlensiaXR.com.