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How to ruin a perfectly good educational opportunity – have a heart

image of a whale heart
Image of a whale heart pinned on Pinterest

This photo has been doing the rounds of Pinterest recently captioned as “the heart of a blue whale”.  I haven’t been able to find the original source of the photo or been able to confirm that it’s a heart from a whale.  Regardless – it’s a big heart and an impressive photo and there are more of them here.

My point here is that it is obviously a photo taken in a lab of a heart that is going to be studied.  It would not have been easy to get and it obviously wasn’t easy to maneuver into the lab.  And what have they done?  Chopped the top off it and made it almost completely useless as a teaching specimen.

What a shame.

Miss Vivi

 

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Take an unglamorous necessary supply issue and turn it into a fun, memorable first rate service

The base of one of the boxes … had a massive crack in it – had to hold it underneath carefully or it would have all fallen out.  No problem with the insides though – frozen hearts are pretty indestructible

Love the new labels and zombie tablets! Only you Deb could take an unglamorous necessary supply issue and turn it into a fun, memorable first rate service. Love your work!  Thanks heaps.

– Christine Futcher, St Peter’s Lutheran College Indooroopilly

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Specimens for ANZSCTS conference wetlab

Last week we sent out some hearts for the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons (ANZSCTS).  Today I’ve received a picture of one of them ready for action.

bovine heart prepared for Bentall procedure workhsop
Bovine heart prepared for Bentall procedure workshop

And what were they going to do with them?   Replacement of the aortic valve, aortic root and ascending aorta in a workshop on the Bentall procedure.

Labbies will be pleased to note that even for heart surgeons sometimes it all comes down to skewers and sticky tape!

Miss Vivi