Dr. Spitzer discusses the process in giving new life to Susan Potter as a living cadaver

Dr. Victor Spitzer, director of the Center for Human Simulation at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, chats with host Ken McConnellogue about the amazing Virtual Human living cadaver. Dr. Spitzer and his team froze, sectioned and sliced body-donor Susan Potter, who died at age 87 and now lives on in 27,000 photos.

* What is the virtual human and how can it help us connect to reality?
* Susan Potter: A philanthropist, fundraiser, body donor
* Slicing and imaging the body to teach students about anatomy and compassion.
* Susan Potter’s life and how it will impact the study of anatomy.
* A broken ‘promise’ – Potter said she’d die within a year; she lived 14 more years.
* Creating an unwitting bond after 14 years. “If I’m going to cut you up I don’t want to be your friend.”
* The dissecting process: Grinding off thin layers of tissue of the frozen body.
* The reverse engineering of the human body.
* How students will benefit from the Virtual Human, including her age, pathology and listening to Susan Potter discuss her pain and experience.
* The Visible Human from the 1990s – how it’s still being developed and moving ahead.
* How technology has improved the virtualization process.
* National Geographic – the longest running story in the magazine’s history.
* International attention and the reaction of readers to the story.
* Compassion versus competency – striving for both.
* Where the visible and virtual realities live now, virtual reality in place at CU.
* Touch of Life Technologies – fabricating the feeling of human tissue for medical students.
* Where does the traditional cadaver stand within the new age?
* What’s coming up in the next decade? Simulating movement with muscle contraction; flowing fluids through the body.
* Susan Potter now: What is she saying beyond the grave? Most likely that she’ll be happy when students are gaining knowledge from she has left them.
* The project completion estimate? Never!
* How Hollywood has helped the Visible and Virtual Human programs.

Resources:

* Susan Potter gave her body to science. Her cadaver become immortal, National Geographic
* Virtual human — a living cadaver — pushes boundaries of anatomical science, CU Anschutz Today, Dec. 13
* Befriending the woman I’d have to dissect, BBC, March 12
* Touch of Life Technologie...