By Poon Chian Hui The Straits Times Sunday, Oct 07, 2012

GIVEN the shrinking supply of cadavers here, the upcoming medical school at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will provide 3-D models of the human body on iPads to allow students to learn about anatomy.

The plan is to set up a central database of 3-D models of real-life patients.

NTU's Institute for Media Innovation (IMI), which is teaming up with the medical school to produce software for the tablet, will be recruiting local patients for the project.

For a start, it will focus on reproducing 3-D models of the lower limbs, said IMI director Nadia Thalmann, who created a virtual heart model back in the 1980s that paved the way for simulation surgery today.

This will be done by getting 2-D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from the patients to provide details of muscles and other structures. The patients will then be scanned with motion-capture technology. All these will be put together to yield a virtual representation of the muscles, tendons, joints and cartilage.

"The internal anatomy is as different as people's faces," Prof Thalmann said. "With patient-specific data, medical students can learn how to treat cases differently, depending on the person's age, amount of fat and how his skeleton moves."

Set to open next year, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine will also use the iPad as an "essential teaching and learning tool", said its senior vice-dean Martyn Partridge, adding that the provision of the device is still being worked out by the school.

"Putting such technology onto an iPad enables the student to visualise, learn and revise wherever they are."

Applications for the first batch of 50 students will open at the end of the year.

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Med students get a feel of human body on iPad