3D printing: a valuable resource in human anatomy education

Anatomy is essential to the health and medical professions: by learning anatomy, medical students learn about the structure of the human body, providing them with the basic tools needed for understanding pathology and clinical problems. In the past century, dissection and lectures formed the basis of anatomy education worldwide. More recently, traditional anatomy education based on topographical structural anatomy taught in lectures and in gross dissection classes, has been replaced by a multiple range of study modules, including problem-based learning, plastic models and/or computer-assisted learning and curricula integration (Louw et al. 2009).