That was all done on a tabletop that is essentially a computer screen. And revealing the details of a skull is a mere fraction of the capabilities of the new learning tool called an anatomage table.

The anatomage table is the most up-to-date device for teaching anatomy, health care classes and even some other kinds of sciences. It shows layer upon layer of the human body, uncovering muscles, blood vessels, internal organs and bones. Students can even use it to do virtual autopsies to determine causes of death.

“It’s a great, great tool,” Kiley O’Leary, a health occupations instructor at the Senior High school, said during an October open house at which the new anatomage table was unveiled.

O’Leary pushed for the district to acquire an anatomage table.

-Messenger file photo by Bill Shea
Kiley O'Leary, center, a health occupations instructor at Fort Dodge Senior High School, explains the functions of the school's new anatomage table during an open house last fall. The table provides detailed images of human anatomy.

She said that Fort Dodge is one of just 10 high schools to have such a table.

“We’re very, very fortunate to have it,” she said.

The district’s Board of Education ordered the table in July and paid for it with donations rather than property tax dollars. The table was delivered in time for the current school year.

Gehlhausen, a ninth-grader and a member of Senior High’s Health Occupations Students of America chapter, is one of many students using the table.

She works with the table during the association’s meetings. She said it took a couple of weeks to master the controls.

Gehlhausen, who wants to pursue a career in radiology, demonstrated some of the anatomage table’s capabilities.

She explained how such realistic images are provided by the table.

“They took pictures of different cadavers they had and programmed them into the computer,” she said.

The table comes loaded with images of several individuals of both genders and of different ages, she said.

The table will get lots of use because enrollment in the health occupations classes is growing exponentially, according to O’Leary.

She said there were 620 students in the various health occupations classes last year, with similar numbers this year. The Health Occupations Students of America chapter has 100 active members and is the second largest extracurricular activity behind the marching band, she said.

The table was purchased from Anatomage Inc., of Santa Clara, California, for $115,635.

The Fort Dodge Community Schools Foundation contributed $60,000 in one of its largest single donations.

Other donors were UnityPoint Health — Fort Dodge, Calvert & Johnson Insurance, Iowa Central Community College and Dr. Joseph Schmoker and his wife Tracy (Hurdel) Schmoker, of Missoula, Montana. Both of them are Fort Dodge Senior High School graduates.