An Educational Afterlife: UM Cadaver Lab Project Extends Learning Long After Death
By Cary Shimek, UM News Service
MISSOULA – Society tends to protect the identity of cadavers, so not much is known about No. 817. We know the 72-year-old woman was from Montana and that her final cause of death was cancer. One can infer she was a giving person, as she and her caregivers elected to donate her earthly remains to the education of others after she passed.
Now 817 serves as a profound gift that keeps giving in the 91短视频’s state-of-the-art Cadaver Lab, located on the fourth floor of Missoula College.
“There is just something to the experience of working with these bodies that a textbook can’t offer,” said Lucas Whitcher, the human biology assistant professor who directs the lab. “It’s like an offering – that these people have gifted themselves for this purpose. I think they would love to know they are training young minds and the minds of so many others in our community.”
The cadaver came to Missoula College via the Montana Body Donation Program. As one of three bodies in the lab, 817 teaches hundreds of anatomy and physiology students in Missoula College each semester. She also is used to educate students in athletic training, pre-med and other majors from the central UM campus, as well as area high school students. Additionally, fire departments and other emergency medical responders train with the cadavers.
Whitcher said the Cadaver Lab initially housed two bodies – a male and female, so students could study both sexes. However, they recently added a third body because of increased use by the Missoula College Paramedicine Program.
“In two years, these bodies could be seen by maybe 1,000 individuals,” Whitcher said. “We have partnerships with nearly every local high school, and they provide amazing educational opportunities for everyone involved.”
In her new afterlife, 817 also stars in an original series called the Legacy Project. Whitcher said the project creates anatomical and procedural videos for students using the cadavers in their studies, ensuring the legacy of each gifted body will remain for future students.
The first video involves onboarding for “prosectors,” the UM students who spend hours preparing and dissecting the cadavers to reveal their mysterious interiors for others to study.
“I coordinate a small group of students who have taken both semesters of our anatomy and physiology courses,” Whitcher said. “Each of them will be assigned a body region, like maybe the upper limb or a lower limb. And over the course of an entire semester, they’ll work to intricately exhibit all the anatomical structures that we study – everything from the nerves and blood vessels to the larger organs.”
He said the first video is about setting up expectations for the prosectors and establishing a culture of respect for the cadavers. Subsequent films involve regional dissection techniques and overviews of anatomical structures. While the Legacy Project is still in its infancy, the team is continually working to build a video archive to enhance the education of UM students.
“Every cadaver is different because everybody is different,” Whitcher said. “We all have anatomical abnormalities or different pathologies that are unique. We want to use the Legacy Project to help preserve that.”
The creator and lead videographer in this effort is Jessica Ragan, a UM finance major recently accepted into UM’s Physical Therapy Program. She completed UM anatomy coursework and then worked with Whitcher as a prosecutor.
Ragan said of the cadavers: “These people’s donation touches so many lives, and we hope this new project will help them reach even more. Proposing and leading this effort has been deeply rewarding, knowing I could help relay and preserve all this information for future people and amplify the educational impact of these donations.”
Alex Zache, a UM pre-med student, also was heavily involved in founding the Legacy Project.
When her interior isn’t on display, 817 resembles a blue mummy half submerged in a metal tub of preservative solution. The fluid – of UM’s own invention – is made of food-grade preservatives and includes eucalyptus, which has a fresh smell. The cadaver must be kept moist to avoid drying out. Whitcher said 817 came to them embalmed, so she can be stored at room temperature.
However, the UM Paramedic Program trains its students with a fresh body every year. Unlike a preserved cadaver, this body must be refrigerated and used for learning during a 72-hour timeframe before being returned. Whitcher said UM’s budding paramedics have unique opportunities to train with an unaltered body for real-world procedures – things like chest needle decompressions or endotracheal intubation.
“As far as we know, our paramedic program is the only one anywhere doing this,” he said. “This type of opportunity is groundbreaking.”
Victor White, who directs the Missoula College’s Radiologic Technology Program, said there are other ways to preserve the legacy of donated cadavers. Last fall he and Whitcher transported the college’s male cadaver to Missoula’s Montana Imaging Center for a full-body CT scan. The scan was completed by Dr. Tim McCue, the center’s radiologist in chief.
“Completing the CT scan before dissection preserves these images in perpetuity for future analysis,” White said. “The idea of scanning a cadaver before use is virtually unprecedented in academia, and Missoula College is fortunate for this opportunity. The CT images will now accompany our traditional anatomy instruction.”
When it’s time to display 817, her metal table is raised slightly out of the fluid. Whitcher asks “Is it OK if we uncloak?” before proceeding to remove the blue wrappings from her torso and limbs. Wraps are retained about her head and face, and white socks damp with preservative fluid cover her hands and feet, keeping the tissues moist. The cadaver itself has an unreal quality – more like a rubbery mannequin than someone who once walked and talked. But it’s real enough when Whitcher gently pulls open her dissected chest cavity to reveal the fascinating world within.
Whitcher pulls a sock from the left hand. The wrist bones and tendons are exposed from a demonstration completed by Dr. Charles Sullivan, a local hand surgeon. Whitcher said the lab was filled with local health professionals and UM students eager to learn from the procedure, one of several each year through collaboration with Missoula Bone & Joint.
UM has a decades-long history of teaching its students with cadavers. Beyond Missoula College, cadavers are housed and used within the College of Health and Division of Biomedical Sciences. However, with the upcoming launch of UM’s Physician’s Associate Program and outdated facilities at the central campus, Whitcher and other leaders are planning a new shared space.
They envision using unfinished space in Missoula College to house six to eight cadavers at a time, consolidating all of them together. The team already has blueprints, and multiple programs plan to teach gross human anatomy within the upgraded area. The group needs about $700,000 to make it happen.
“It would be shared space for several UM programs where we could host additional surgeries, increase enrollments and benefit from collaborations between the disciplines,” he said. “Ultimately, it would increase the gift of body donation monumentally.”
But by the time that happens, 817 will be long gone. After a two-year tenure 91短视频, she will be returned to the Montana Body Donation Program and cremated. Her ashes will be returned to her loved ones. But the legacy of her gift will echo forward.
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Contact: Dave Kuntz, UM director of strategic communications, 406-243-5659, dave.kuntz@umontana.edu.