Blog 3

By: Sindhu Bilapati

This summer, I have been thinking more about how 3D anatomical modeling can be used in medical education and clinical learning. Through my experience at Mayo Clinic’s Anatomical Modeling Unit, I have seen how a model can turn anatomy from something hidden in a scan into something people can physically see and understand. That has made me think about how I can bring what I am learning back to the FSU College of Medicine.

Right now, I am still deciding what kind of model I could make for the College of Medicine. I want to choose something with a real purpose for students who are learning anatomy. My experience this summer has taught me that the value of a model comes from how clearly it helps someone understand a structure, especially when that structure is difficult to picture from images alone.

This project connects to my interest in biomedical engineering because it sits between technical design and education. When I make a model, I have to think about whether it can be printed, what needs to stand out, what can be simplified, and how someone else will interpret what I made. That has changed the way I see 3D modeling. It is a process of recreating anatomy and deciding how anatomy should be communicated.

I hope to use the skills I am building at Mayo to make something useful for FSU COM. Even though I am still in the early stages of deciding what the model should be, this idea has helped me see my summer experience in a bigger way. I am learning techniques for segmentation, design, and printing while also learning how to use those techniques with a specific audience in mind.