Our experience at your service
“How do I know what I need?”
Introducing prosections as a key learning tool in a curriculum may feel like a big change. Common questions from new clients include whether or not prosections are suitable for current facilities, curriculum, and student body.
In most cases, these questions are best answered in direct consultations. PRIME’s consultants are leaders in the medical education and plastination community. Some have over a decade of experience using prosections in classrooms across Asia, Europe, and North America, including the halls of New York University.
Others have years of experience working with the originators of plastination in Germany. Your business with PRIME grants you free access to this expertise.
Better scores,
Save costs,
& many other benefits
What often distinguishes one university from another is its unique approach to teaching each subject, particularly within a climate of curricular reform.
The last decade has brought significant changes in curricula. Many institutions have introduced problem-based learning approaches to medical education. Such changes necessitate reform in the study of anatomy as a subject to meet the needs of evolving curricula.
There is an emergence in the world of anatomy education: dissections are becoming untenable and increasingly difficult to adapt to curricula striving to incorporate new content and manage resources.
The wet lab is both financially and physically restrictive. The overhead of maintenance, the use of space, the allocation of time, the acquisition of specimens, and the retention of trained staff to maintain the lab are not small issues. Moreover, the risk of overexposure to formaldehyde, the hazardous chemical used to embalm cadavers, has become a forgotten liability.
The advent of odorless, non-toxic plastinated prosections abolishes each of these issues and maximizes the economy of time and anatomical specificity. As the study of anatomy moves away from the traditional wet lab and toward the more innovative and effective method of using long-lasting prosections, there are a few items worth mentioning to institutions considering or furthering the transition.
1 - Improved Test Scores
Several studies—including one from the University of Warwick and NYUCD—report the benefit of plastinated prosections as a primary resource for anatomy education. These benefits include higher test scores, retention of information, and greater overall student satisfaction. From PRIME’s standpoint, this is obvious given the following factors:
- a. Plastinated prosections increase the effective use of time by eliminating the requirement to excavate a cadaver while studying anatomical information. Thus, more time is spent learning than laboring.
- b. Plastinated prosections encourage self-directed, active inquiry by guiding students through the subject’s structures from introductory to advanced understanding. This increases three-dimensional reasoning and cultivates spatial awareness skills.
2 - Economics
Whatever the reasons, there is a near-universal trend in education that as enrollment grows, budgets shrink.
Wet specimens are costly. The lab is costly.
The acquisition of plastinated prosections may seem significant, however it has shown the initial costs typically amortize over the first 3 years.
In addition to prosections offering an improved educational experience, they might provide schools savings within the first year of implementation depending on the overhead costs of the dissection laboratory, recurring costs of cadaver acquisition, storage, and embalming. And because plastinated prosections will outlast even the youngest professor’s tenure (life span of over 20 years), the savings over time are immense.
Teaching with prosections allows multipurpose usage for 1st year students studying gross anatomy, senior students preparing for Board examinations, and medical and dental students who wish to review gross anatomy before entering residency. The university can ease the shortage of spacing through multipurpose classrooms, remove continuous costs, and relax the pressure of restricted resources such as cadaver labs.
3 - Rentals
PRIME is the first in the world to offer rental services to schools. As educators we realize that purchasing prosections may not be a viable option for schools not yet familiar with using the technology in the classroom.
Renting prosections grants a significant savings to educators exploring new curricula or transitioning out of old ways. There are several options for those choosing to rent, most customers choose one of two categories: the Modular Kit or the Starter Kit.
The Modular Kit contains prosections grouped in much the same was as the catalogue in your hands, Upper Limb, Lower Limb, etc. The Starter Kit is assembled based on an interview with you about your institution’s current needs.
4 - Access
Many schools are in cultural, political, and logistical environments that prevent access to real wet specimens. Though the will and need to study anatomy in a hands-on way may be there, the students are left with books and three-dimensional renderings online.
What these methods can never fully communicate—and what students will often unknowingly destroy in wet labs—are the singularities of each body. Plastinated prosections can meet the needs for real anatomy in these institutions that were hitherto prevented.
And it addresses the important and exciting element of human biological variation and uniqueness. Furthermore, through PRIME’s plastination process, some pathologies can be preserved in the prosection
5 - Consultation
This is a service that is featured exclusively by PRIME.
Just as no two bodies are identical, so are no two schools. Included in your business with PRIME are direct in-person or phone consultations about your institution’s particular requirements and goals. We want to understand exactly what your current and long- term needs are in your work with students and prosections.
Then we can help you determine what is necessary—and perhaps more importantly, what is unnecessary.
As the technology is still so new and in many areas has been transformed into spectacle, there is often misinformation about what is needed in a plastinated prosection for an optimal education in anatomy.
More than just models,
you get prosections with teaching resources
Do you need to change your anatomy curriculum and are looking options? Unlike other companies PRIME does not just provide the tools but gives complete solutions for teaching anatomy. We do not make plastinated specimens but prosections, specimens professionally dissected by prosectors to display all relevant structures within each prosection.
PRIME has the highest dissection standards which undergo a strict quality control to ensure the best quality for our prosections. Our team of anatomists and prosectors, some with decades of experience, have put together a line of prosections to fulfill any requirements of a medical,dental or osteopathic anatomy curriculum.
PRIME provides a number of complementary teaching resources to help faculty with easy integration of prosections into any kind of anatomy curriculum.
All prosections come with prosection manuals intended to guide students with straightforward information about anatomical structures. The subject matter is paralleled with clinical considerations to maximize an aspiring health professional’s learning experience in the lab.
Also included are lists of “Structures to Find” in order to ensure that students identify and trace relevant structures that pertain to a given anatomical topic. This affords students an opportunity to self-assess their learning progress for which faculty can rely on to model and integrate prosections for practical examinations.
Our aim is to provide what is necessary to enable university faculty to easily assimilate prosections as a unique teaching tool and economize your time and preparation.
When you choose to work with PRIME, we guarantee you will experience the best customer service in the industry. Any purchases will be guarateed of a production time of six (6) months, rentals are dependend upon availability.
We will be there to ensure everything is exactly as it should be. Education is our business, and we take it seriously.
PRIME’s experience in education and plastination is what led us to make our mission to improve the study of medicine through prosections.
It was a demonstration of our trust in our mission that led to this company, and ultimately this website. It is a demonstration of your trust that you have joined us in this introduction.
We encourage you to consider the future of anatomy at your institution and whether it is ready to step into the next evolution of medical education. If you decide that plastinated prosections are right for you, we invite you to consider having a PRIME prosection be the learning tool to revolutionize your students’ experience.
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