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The 3D‐Printed Human Heart: Development of Inexpensive, Versatile, Three‐Dimensional Models of the Human Heart For Medical Education
Author(s) -
Holloway Blake Walter,
Ogdon Dorothy Megatron,
Barger Bradley Simon,
Resuehr David Megatron
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.606.17
Subject(s) - human heart , human body , ultrasound , human anatomy , position (finance) , relation (database) , cardiac ultrasound , medical physics , medicine , mediastinum , anatomy , radiology , computer science , cardiology , finance , database , economics
The human heart is an incredibly complex organ and its anatomical position in the mediastinum gives it a uniquely protected and central position in the thorax. In addition to understanding the general anatomy and physiology of the heart, it is important to understand the three dimensional (3D) position and relationships of the heart to the surrounding viscera as it plays a central role in many aspects of medical training. Preclinical ultrasound education has been shown to enhance the teaching of gross anatomy, which makes it a very useful tool in the UME setting, yet, many learners struggle with understanding the 3D position of the human heart in relation to the surrounding viscera, and often have difficulty envisioning, extrapolating and interpreting medical imaging views of the heart in ultrasound imaging. As the prevalence of ultrasound in UME is steadily increasing in medical colleges nationwide and the heart is a favorite and one of the first organs to be scanned by students. The heart is among the easier organs to locate sonographically, and provides a great deal of clinical information. We have previously shown that homemade, transparent ultrasound trainers often referred to as ballistic gel phantoms help students gain a better understanding of the 3D arrangement of structures in the heart on ultrasound. Our assumption was that a physical model that the learner could hold, rotate, inspect from multiple angles, and approximate in relation to his or her own body would facilitate improved learning by providing a multimodal approach not available through ultrasound alone. Using ideas drawn from our previous work with ballistic gel, we used a 3D printer to create models of, typical echo cardiography views of the heart to use as multimodal teaching tools. These models supplement and enriching the extant didactic materials currently in use for learning cardiac anatomy and cardiac ultrasound image interpretation. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .