A big part of the still-in-progress “pandemic scramble” of trying to get our A&P course from is on-campus venue to a remote or semi-remote format is grappling with finding a good tool to teach the anatomy that we usually teach in a lab. Many of my colleagues are looking here and there and everywhere for just the right tool. A tool at an affordable price.Guess what? If you and your students are using the Patton Anatomy & Physiology textbook in your course, you already have a great tool! At no extra cost! Really. No new licenses. No subscriptions. No extra fees. Not only that, there’s nothing for you to arrange in order for your students to have it. They already have it!Open the book and on the page facing the inside front cover, you’ll see the scratch-off label for Netter’s 3D Anatomy. Use the access code and you’ll unlock a beautiful set of anatomy tools based on the famous illustrations by Frank H. Netter and his successors. Rendered in three dimensions, these amazing illustrations of the structures of the human body can be moved and rotated around easily to see them from any angle. Structures can also be pulled apart and put back together, thus making this platform a true virtual dissection tool. But how does one use Netter’s 3D Anatomy in teaching a course—especially when trying to replicate an in-lab learning experience? There are many options, but here are a few to spark your own creative solutions:Use your “lab list” of required structures to identify in a dissection—or develop such a list—and assign students to find them, just as they would in a “wet” dissection.Consider having students take screen shots of their work and compile their own “guide to the body.”Take your own screen shots—perhaps even a narrated video screen shot—to guide students through each region you’d like to have them “dissect” on their own.Use captured screen shots to produce a virtual dissection quiz.Assign students a set of structures to “teach” the class, and let them share their screens and walk the rest of the class through their assigned structures. I use Snagit by TechSmith for my screen captures—both still and video—because I’ve become comfortable with its many features, such as easy markups of screen captures. However, you can use any screen capture tool—including the one probably already installed in your system.
