Medical Students Replace Cadavers with 3D-Printed Body Parts

A grim but necessary part of learning about the human anatomy as a medical student is dissecting cadavers. You might be surprised to find out then that there is, unfortunately, a shortage of this vital training tool all over the world, be it for religious or monetary reasons, or people understandably just not wanting to donate their body to science.

But a team in Australia may have found the answer! No more uncomfortable wielding of a scalpel over a cadaver, no more worrying about how to store the cadavers to make it last as long as possible, no more reduction in quality because the same cadaver has been used over and over again and it’s been around for a while now.

Instead, medical students can look forward to the possibility of dissecting 3D-printed body parts. Anatomy kits have been developed using this technology by a team from Monash University in Melbourne, led by Professor Paul McMenamin, who heads the Centre for Human Anatomy Education there. They have also published their work in Anatomical Sciences Education .

The body parts are made of dry powder instead of human tissue, so they don’t deteriorate like a conventional cadaver does, and different parts of the anatomy are falsely coloured to help medical students distinguish between each part. Again, this colouring doesn’t fade as it would in a real specimen, which gradually loses its own colour the longer it is kept.

Professor McMenamin explained that without students being able to look inside a body and take a precise look at the inner workings, it makes their learning all the more difficult for them. But the 3D-printed body parts look just like the real thing, right down to the smallest details, and so have everything needed to teach a student everything they need to know about that particular part, from muscles and ligaments to blood vessels and tissue.

The initial process to create the kit involves numerous CT scans of actual body parts before printing layer by layer, which can take up to 12 hours. While this might sound like a long time, once this has been done, copies are only a click away. “If you dropped [a body part] and it broke, you just order another one and we press print,” explained Professor McMenamin.

While the 3D-printed anatomy kits will be beneficial to pretty much everywhere, they are likely to be particularly so in hospitals and medical schools in many Middle Eastern countries, as well as developing countries.

“How do you get a group of people who religiously believe a body shouldn’t be desecrated or touched, to donate their bodies?” asked Professor McMenamin. “A lot of these countries don’t have bequest programmes; they rely on unclaimed bodies, and that creates another ethical debate.”

Another plus side to the kits is that you don’t need to order parts you don’t need. For example, podiatrists need only order foot kits and hand therapists can just order a load of hands though entire bodies are also available.

Professor McMenamin said that the next step is to develop a way of using 3D-printing technology to teach surgery, creating skin-like skin, muscles and tendons that have the same consistencies as the real articles. “We could create a surgical training tool which could be used over and over again," he explained, "instead of surgeons having to learn by using real patients."

It is hoped that the anatomy kits will be available to buy within the next year - perhaps as soon as six months away - so it won't be too long before medical schools and hospitals, and ultimately their patients, will be benefitting from this innovative concept.