{"id":235869,"date":"2025-09-29T08:24:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T12:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=235869"},"modified":"2025-09-29T16:04:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T20:04:01","slug":"learning-from-the-dead-to-better-serve-the-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/09\/learning-from-the-dead-to-better-serve-the-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from the Dead to Better Serve the Living"},"content":{"rendered":"

For thousands of years, doctors and scientists have used human cadavers to help the living. From gaining knowledge of the human body to training future clinicians, this practice has been critical to the advancement of medical science. UConn\u2019s Human Anatomy Learning Laboratory (HALL)<\/a> continues this tradition in a state-of-the-art facility for UConn students and current health care providers seeking to hone their skills.<\/p>\n

Located in the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR), the 700-square foot facility provides a space for the study of human anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, and pathology through real cadaver dissection with simulation support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe orient current and future health care providers to the way the body is put together and give them the chance to have direct encounters with the tissue, so they experience things at a level you can\u2019t experience through simulation,\u201d says HALL director Jeffrey Kinsella-Shaw. Kinsella-Shaw is Livieri-Endowed Professor of Physical Therapy and associate professor in CAHNR\u2019s Department of Kinesiology.<\/p>\n

The specialized facility has a filtration system that turns the air over in the room 12 times in one hour, ensuring the air quality always remains high. HALL can house up to six cadavers and offers students unique opportunities to teach and master a variety of techniques through experiential learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can comfortably hold classes of 30 in this facility, and we have remote functionality as well with cameras that allow recording and streaming video,\u201d says Kinsella-Shaw.<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional human cadaver labs, HALL is also more comfortable for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that formaldehyde smell? You don\u2019t get that in here,\u201d says Kinsella-Shaw. \u201cThis is a very safe facility, with low humidity keeping the cadavers safer to work with for longer periods, and it means they\u2019re prepared with far less chemicals.\u201d<\/p>\n

UConn students in the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)<\/a> program and health care providers in the Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGACNP)<\/a> track for degree and certificate programs in the UConn School of Nursing (NURS) frequently use HALL for classroom instruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor physical therapy students, we give them the chance to practice their skills on the cadavers that they\u2019ll use for real patients. We\u2019re able to unwrap the layers and they can visualize it,\u201d says Kinsella-Shaw.<\/p>\n

Physical therapy students are expected to learn the roughly 206 bones in the human body, the approximately 1,200 named sites on those bones, and, depending on how they are counted, 600 to 800 muscles, along with blood supply through the veins.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get hands-on and feel those tissues and see the actual muscle fibers, the tendons, the ligaments \u2013 it really changes the way you think about the human body,\u201d says Noah Tedeschi \u201821 (CAHNR), a DPT student.<\/p>\n

HALL has been a game changer for UConn\u2019s School of Nursing, especially the AGACNP programs focused on training advanced practice registered nurses to care for the acutely ill, complex adult and gerontology populations.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy bridging the gap between classroom instruction and clinical practice, this collaboration equips our students with the confidence, precision, and compassion needed for their transition into clinical rotations,\u201d says Kristin Bott, DNP, APRN, ACNP-BC, an assistant clinical professor and director of the AGACNP program. \u201cThe integration of HALL into our curriculum is a distinctive strength of our program, one that sets us apart from other acute care nurse practitioner programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

HALL also runs continuing education courses available to health care providers to hone their skills as clinicians. High school students learn at the facility as part of UConn’s Pre-College Summer in the Pre-Med Human Anatomy & Physiology course as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can give those younger students experiences that they don\u2019t have the resources to get in another way. HALL could be a hub of STEM learning for students who have an interest in science and potentially want to become health care providers,\u201d says Kinsella-Shaw.<\/p>\n

Kinsella-Shaw doesn\u2019t want to stop there. He is aiming to create more partnerships at UConn and throughout Connecticut, even with some unexpected audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, I think we\u2019ve had faculty and\/or students from every school and college visit,\u201d says Kinsella-Shaw. \u201cWe\u2019ve had researchers in UConn Engineering working on artificial disc replacement and working on synthetic skin tissues, and they want to see the real thing. I\u2019ve even talked to the School of Fine Arts about doing an anatomy for artists course. That\u2019s a huge tradition. All the early anatomists were also artists. To sum it all up, there\u2019s something for everyone here.\u201d<\/p>\n

This work relates to CAHNR\u2019s Strategic Vision area focused on\u00a0<\/em>Enhancing Health and Well-Being Locally, Nationally, and Globally.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0<\/em>UConn CAHNR<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on social media<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn\u2019s Human Anatomy Learning Laboratory (HALL) is a state-of-the-art cadaver facility that provides educational opportunities for UConn students, health care professionals, and those aspiring to enter the medical field<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":235870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2224,1877,2231,2649,2299],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2153],"class_list":["post-235869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cahnr","category-nur","category-health-well-being","category-blue-pride","category-kinesiology","post_format-post-format-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 06:18:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235869"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235993,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235869\/revisions\/235993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/235870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235869"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=235869"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=235869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}