At Valparaiso University, to step inside the human heart is not merely an exercise in undergraduate interpersonal relations or a poetry review, but virtually to infiltrate the powerhouse of the body.
The AlensiaXR HoloAnatomy.NEXT and HoloAnatomy Neuro.NEXT have been used at Valparaiso University for the past year for adjunct anatomy lectures in the five-year accelerated physician assistant program. The fully-accredited program is in its seventh year and welcomed the public into Harre Union Tuesday to experience the technology, which isn’t being used anywhere else in Northwest Indiana.
That human heart can be shrunk down small enough to fit in the palm of a student’s hand. How big it can be made is limited only by the size of the room. Tuesday afternoon, it filled the cavernous ballroom to the ceiling, and guests were able to step inside it like a scientific bouncy house, valves opening and closing, heart strings thrumming.
Donning the immersive XR Viewer, which uses Meta Quest 3 and Microsoft HoloLens, allows students to not only see three-dimensional organ systems but also to manipulate them. The nervous system is a prime example.
“You can not see nerves very well in a cadaver, except for the sciatic,” explained Claudine Ruzga, clinical assistant professor in VU’s physician assistant program. But with HoloAnatomy Neuro.NEXT, the nervous system was clearly displayed in yellow.
“We did research for several years before we chose this resource,” Ruzga said.
“Valpo’s had a long history in the medical field,” added Assistant Dean and Program Director for the Physician Assistant Program Joe Zaweski, including a time when the university had a medical school about 100 years ago.
Now, VU is training PAs to help fill the shortage of medical professionals in this country. “It’s similar to a pre-med program,” Zaweski said of the PA offering. “We’re a little ahead of this,” he added. “Universities are moving more and more toward accelerated degrees.”
Paige Haluska, class of ‘27, has already used the HoloAnatomy and said, “It’s a lot easier to actually visualize the structures. We saw the shoulder one (module) where the shoulder was raising.” When studying the shoulder, Haluska said it was helpful to see the supraspinatus and deltoid muscles moving in real time, uncovered by skin.
VU organizes the curriculum by embedding pharmacology and anatomy into the organ system modules. HoloAnatomy is used throughout the whole PA program, including for review of procedures such as putting in a chest tube when students return from their clinicals.
As VU and Alensia expand their offerings of the technology, students may eventually have access to models of molecules such as hemoglobin, which could be used to better understand anemia, for example. The options for study seem unlimited as “PAs can work anywhere a doctor works,” Zaweski said, “radiology, psychiatry, internal medicine.”
The field started in 1967 at Duke University when a medical school professor was looking for a way to utilize the high level of skill developed by medics during the Vietnam War.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Original source: us