Top 5 Reasons to Virtually Donate Your Body to Science

Let’s talk about your body. Its OK, I am a doctor.

But first, what I do exactly requires a little explanation perhaps. I’ve been in front of a number of audiences and they usually get confused about what I do.  It’s more my fault than theirs, it’s confusing and I find it hard to explain sometimes. I’m Board Certified in Emergency Medicine, a doctor, but I teach patient safety, and healthcare resiliency, and engineering to students of all types.  My real specialization is in clinical simulation and there is no Board for that, so in part I need contribute to the standard. That’s part of what I do; advance the standard.

But back to you and your body. You should definitely donate your body virtually to science. 

What’s that mean? Virtually? 

Consider this. For centuries doctors, anatomists, and physiologists have learned about how the body works through the study of anatomy. Most typically, such study occurred by the careful examination of the body after death, usually through a generous “anatomic gift” but sometimes regrettably without the consent of the “donor.” But that’s another story.

What I am talking about is scientists working diligently to understand human disease and wellness through the evaluation of the structure and function of people.  

For many decades and more, modern medicine learned at autopsy. The pathologist and the clinician would learn just what happened to the patient together. Everything was scrutinized until learning occurred. That learning helped that clinician, and if it was a good lesson for others- grand enough, there might be a conference about it, a morbidity and mortality conference or a “Grand Rounds,” to disseminate those valuable lessons to other physicians at a particular hospital or in a particular community.

Autopsy and this type of learning has become less popular. These conferences are more likely to have images from CT scan or MRI, than from prosection. As I write this, the all-seeing dictionary in my laptop doesn’t even know the word “prosection” any more, that’s how quickly things have changed.  

And thankfully science and surgery have advanced too. Patient outcomes are improved by the early recognition of disease through medical imaging and prompt action. In the case of our congenital heart program, we see kids living much longer with life-saving interventions done earlier and earlier and more quickly after recognition. This blessing comes with a caveat; there are fewer and fewer “untouched” cases to learn from. 

It’s terribly sad, but the way many docs of my generation learned was from preserved specimens from patients and parents who wanted docs to learn from their disease or that of their loved one by donating their body. These specimens are breaking down, and they are not likely to be replaced because we are doing a better job of saving lives through earlier interventions.

But here’s the key. We do have CTs and MRIs and we do have some substantial advances in Virtual and Augmented Reality. And we have an opportunity to do some learning and teaching at a scale that has never been seen before. That’s what our Advanced Imaging and Modeling (AIM) program does. We convert those images into 3D objects to advance medical care and patient understanding.

So back to you and your body.

Here is why you should donate your body virtually to science.

5. We have two eyes

Most of us have two eyes that work pretty well. Most doctors do too. We can see things better with our binocular (both eyes) vision. Having two eyes makes it possible to perceive depth and how things are positioned in space. We are hard-wired for 3D visualization all the way down to the structure and function of our brains. Our Advanced Imaging and Modeling (AIM) crew have proven that seeing three-dimensionally changes the way surgeons prepare for surgery.  They have proven that it’s superior to trying to trick your brain into converting 2D medical images into 3D by looking at slices.

In the recent Chicago Tribune article the AIM program is featured for our process of converting clinical images like CT scans and MRIs into 3D and Virtual reality models.  AIM has partnered with the American Heart Association and with the NIH 3D print exchange to advance the science of three dimensional imaging. Children’s Hospital of Illinois and OSF Innovation project lead, Dr. Matthew Bramlet curates the heart collection of the NIH library. 

We are on this path for three reasons; to advance Clinical Decisions (especially in surgeries), to Improve Patient Communication, and to Educate Clinicians. Through three 3D visualization, doctors see better and make better plans and decisions when they see you in 3D.  Patients also understand their disease better, whether it is a knee surgery or to see tumors in their bodies. To understand their disease as a true partner, and not in partial understanding. I believe we should be using every tool we have to advance Patient Education And improve Informed Consent practices by bringing real understanding.

It’s maybe easier to see why donating your virtual body to science improves Medical Education. When a student sits down to learn the structure and function of the human body, they historically have learned from cadavers and anatomical drawings. Imagine instead of a team of medical or nursing students learning from one anatomic donation, or the small collection in their anatomy lab, but from an abundance of images showing the full spectrum of normal and pathological. 

In VR the scale is endless. Students could have a library of images of every example case where a disease, a tumor, an injury, or birth defect could be learned. All of this in a way that our bodies and minds were meant to learn, through 3D vision. Teams of students can work together in “team based learning environments” with instructor guided technology we have built at Jump. Coming soon to the Medical Schools of the University of Illinois through the work of faculty like Dr. Bramlet.

4. I want your body (virtually)

I am guessing that you may have had a CT or an MRI in the past. Americans have had over 80 million CT scans and over 34 million MRIs. By the way, some say about a third of these are totally unnecessary- that’s another rant. I have had a few in my lifetime for various reasons. Right now they are digitally collecting dust in some multi-petabyte server storage space. I can sign a form and get them back digitally from my medical records department and convert them into useful learning tools.You can do likewise with yours.

Normal and abnormal scans are useful to learn from. Learning structure and function from anatomy is partially pattern recognition, as it is in making diagnoses in the field of radiology. Seeing and comparing in three dimensions how things differ and being able to characterize the difference is the cornerstone of understanding. 

3. You look good doing it virtually.

I have been described by friends and colleagues as having a robust figure. I interpret that to indicate that I am carrying a few extra pounds. Let me tell you, I look good in Virtual reality. When we take away the skin and fat layers, under there is a wealth of rich data. I even donated my brain virtually in this pursuit.  You will look virtually good too.  We strip all of the data from the images that are personally identifying to create models of structures in 3D coordinates.  

We convert these through a process called segmentation which is a bit complicated and mostly manual for most of the body structures. Our engineers are working on auto-segmentation, which is the process of teaching a computer through machine learning to identify sinew from sinus, etc. To develop that technology, our engineers need tons of raw data, totally de-identified so that the computers’ algorithms get smart. Currently it takes multiple hours of manual processing, but our technology development plan is to make it happen at warp speed.

When we accomplish our aims the computer will be able to separate each tissue by type, even among the really similar soft tissues, and maybe be able to highlight the unexpected and potentially pathological items it finds. On the output side, we can convert these coordinate maps into 3-D printed objects, into training devices, and into virtual and augmented reality tools.

2. Science advances, but it is hard and we need your help

My team is composed of technical experts, imaging scientists, engineers at the Jump center and the Heathcare Systems Engineering Center of the University of Illinois, as well as scientists and clinicians from OSF Innovation's Jump Simulation Center and clinical partners at other centers who are advancing the science of imaging and modeling.  They are exploring how to scale this technique.

We have been blessed by philanthropists who see the value in our process. We are equipped with teams who are funded to meet our strategic aims and are funded to make this new vision a reality.  Many major healthcare technology companies are working on medical imaging technologies, many of which will be useful in the commercial world. Many of them are designed to make radiologist’s lives easier.  We are setting an audacious vision for why VR and 3D is relevant.

1. You still get to use your body!

Even the strongest scientific minds among us briefly pause when considering an anatomic gift- that is allowing for the use of our bodies after death to learn from.  It’s a little unsettling. Will my body be respected? Would someone recognize me? Do I have the right type of body?

Your donated CT scans and MRIs are otherwise generally useless to you now. You’ve got your findings and reports and have moved on. When you donate your images, we bring what you learned and what your doctor learned about you to a new scale for countless learners. It won't hurt a bit, and you still get to have your body all to yourself! 

For more information about Jump and our focus on healthcare outcomes and our programs like AIM, please contact me. If you would like to donate your medical images to our cause, please mail them to the Jump Center, AIM program. 1306 N Berkeley Ave, Peoria, IL 61615. Include a brief snippet about what was found. We are not offering any medical advice or interpretation. Your gift is that, a gift and a donation to help us develop technologies which help us to advance the science. We do this for the greater good and to educate new generations of clinicians. Don't send us anything you don't want to volunteer to the world and if you send us your images you are consenting to our use to develop technologies to achieve our vision. You wont hear back from us at all but we thank you for your donation.

Take a look at our work on 3D-printing congenital hearts here.