- College of Medicine Faculty News Students
Bloomberg Television’s American Medicine Today national program featured the College of Medicine’s innovative Anatomy Lab and discussed how people can will their bodies to science and education.
The episode features interviews with Dr. Andrew Payer, professor of anatomy, who designed “the Anatomy Lab of my dreams” as an interactive, clinically-based education center. UCF’s anatomy curriculum is unique nationally because first-year students don’t know the cause of death of their cadaver, considered their first patient. Instead, they spend the 17 weeks of lab on a detective mission to determine that cause of death, medical history and how lifestyle may have impacted their patient’s health.
The goal of the curriculum is to develop in students a spirit of inquiry and help them learn anatomy in a clinically relevant way rather than just though memorization. Physicians from across the community volunteer in the lab to provide instruction on anatomy and their specific specialty. Each first patient receives a full body CT scan, donated by Dr. Rick Ramnath, a board-certified radiologist and his partners who co-own NeuroSkeletal Imaging (NSI) in Central Florida, to help train students in the use of medical imaging early in their training.
American Medicine Today anchors toured the lab and also spoke with a medical student and a husband and wife who have taken the steps to will their bodies to UCF in an attempt to train the next generation of doctors. The UCF College of Medicine is one of just three locations in Florida authorized to receive willed bodies for science and education.