The acquisition and reinforcement of foundational anatomy knowledge is a fundamental aspect of the curriculum of future professionals in healthcare education, biomedical communication and dissemination. Higher educational institutions involved in medical, life sciences and veterinary training have endeavoured to implement motivating and engaging learning environments and these can include prosections and dissections of cadaveric material. Facilitating such learning environments can be often limited by legislation and economic challenges which can be challenging for some universities. Although the proposed environments usually support self-directed and collaborative learning, they can be cognitively challenging for students as the limited access to physical resources in facilities (e.g. cadavers in an anatomy laboratory). The challenges of adopting a blended learning approach with traditional teaching can become discouraging for the appreciation of spatial relationships between anatomical structures and the understanding of variability. Consequently, alternative pathways towards sustainable and innovative learning and teaching in medical, life sciences and related veterinary education need to be explored.

From a long standing strategic research-led partnership between the School of Simulation and Visualisation (SimVis) at the Glasgow School of Art, and the Anatomy Facility at the University of Glasgow, we have created a unique and innovative taught postgraduate degree, the MSc in Medical Visualisation and Human Anatomy. This degree combines training in interactive visualisation technologies with intensive full-body anatomical training, including cadaveric dissection.