The doctor-patient conversation is unlike any other communication process. With patients typically only remembering about 14% of what was discussed (Kessels, 2003) it could be argued that never is such an important and crucial conversation so completely and utterly understood by one party, and barely understood by the other.
Learning anatomy is seen as essential to medical practice (McLachlan et al., 2004). In research carried out on doctors seven years post-qualification, gross anatomy was graded as having the highest medical relevance (Pabst et al., 1997). It is the foundation of any educational programme in the life sciences, including medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, sports science, etc. But there are significant challenges for professors and students. Some of these are discussed below.
Not all of us learn well from flat 2D images and text. Professors, teachers and trainers realise this fact, because scientists and psychologists have developed a number of different models to understand the different ways that people learn best. One popular theory, the VARK model, identifies four primary types of learners: Visual, Auditory, Reading/writing, and Kinesthetic.
The doctor-patient consultation is a critical engagement process because it is a point which determines the diagnosis, treatment, or prognosis for a particular patient. However, because of several factors (60% of us are visual learners, this consultation is predominantly verbal, and may often involve non-familiar language to the patient), the average patient recall of this vital conversation is 14%, and only one-third of patients adhere correctly to their treatment plans.
Anatomus has been developed with help of medical professionals from around the world. It all started with our iOS application PocketAnatomy that was downloaded by more than 1million medical professionals. Based on the feedback we received, we started working on a more advanced, desktop application that would dive even deeper into human Anatomy. We started collaborating with hospitals, universities and medical specialists to build a very flexible yet powerful piece of software that would support doctor-patient communication, support self learning and help all the lecturers to better educate future doctors, nurses and healthcare practitioners.
For the last year, we’ve been working on something huge – a new educational platform for current and future doctors. We also want to help medical professionals communicate with patients and provide them with their ultimate anatomy reference content. Today, we are proud to introduce you to our new solution called Anatomus.
After the completion of the Skeletal System, Connective Tissues and Muscular System, the next phase was to construct the internal organs of the reproductive, digestive, and respiratory systems. The majority of the organs were labelled and segmented from the VHP Data using 3dSlicer. Figure 1.0: Segmenting the organs using 3DSlicer
After the completion of the Skeletal System and Connective Tissues, the next phase was to construct the muscular system, which enables the body to move, maintain posture, and circulate blood and consists of skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscles.
After completion of the skeletal system, building the cartilage, ligaments, and connective tissues within the body was the next logical phase as along with the bones, these are the fibrous connective tissues that also provide structural support and protection within the body.
June 2016, our team started on a journey to develop a 3D Human Anatomy Model. As the skeleton is the support structure of the human body – giving the body its shape and form, providing attachment points for muscles to allow movement of the joints and serving as a frame for protecting the organs – it was the natural starting point for creating our 3d human.
We are a team of healthcare professionals, educators and interaction designers passionate about the intersection of healthcare and visual learning. It is our privilege to bring you meaningful mobile medical education software apps.
Co-funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union
