Sixty budding bioscience, healthcare students and medics had a unique opportunity to boost their anatomy and physiology understanding, with real dissection of real organ specimens, when acclaimed human anatomist Samuel Piri, fresh from a highly successful appearance on TV entrepreneur showcase Dragons’ Den, and his clinical team visited the college in October. Using a combination of the world’s only semi synthetic human cadaver, and an appropriate array of lamb and pig organs, students were invited to dissect matter from the head and brain, thorax, abdomen and wider extremities. This type of experience is usually reserved for medical students and those studying sciences at higher education level.

Mrs Walker and Mr Harrison, from the Biology department at Loreto, were delighted with the uptake, the excited anticipation of the students, and especially the enthusiastic response as they donned the surgical gloves and got properly ‘hands on.’ Feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive, with virtually 100% of those responding saying that they loved the experience, found it very useful, and would recommend it to a friend.

One student summed up her experience of the event, saying:

“I think it was really interactive and the small group size allowed everyone to dissect and enjoy the experience! I’ve never done anything like this before so it was definitely something new!”

Mrs Walker and Mr Harrison are confident that those students fortunate enough to attend will have had their anatomical knowledge reinforced considerably, which can only be of benefit to them as they proceed on their courses.