When Dr. Shakti Chandra arrived in St. John’s from India in 1974, she was expecting to continue a career in clinical medicine.
However, a last-minute opportunity to teach an anatomy class in Memorial University’s Faculty of Medicine set her on a new path that would shape generations of medical learners and leave a lasting physical legacy.
“Somebody was supposed to come from England and teach a block anatomy course, but they didn’t show up, so they asked me,” said Dr. Chandra. “It was just supposed to be for two months.”
Driving force
The job, however, kept being extended and with a young family at home and a growing appreciation for teaching, she stayed on — for more than 40 years.
In that time, Dr. Chandra taught countless medical students. All of them benefitted from her belief that understanding the human body begins with seeing it first-hand.
“There was a growing feeling that anatomy could be taught with 3D images or other means, but I didn’t believe that,” she said. “To be able to see it and hold it is different from looking at an image or a model.”
That philosophy led her to become the driving force behind the faculty’s collection of plastinated anatomical specimens, known as Body Works.
Members of the public will get a chance to experience Body Works first-hand during an open house on Saturday, Sept. 19, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. in the Faculty of Medicine Building atrium.
Understanding the human structure
Plastination is a process that replaces water and fat in human tissue with durable polymers.
The result is dry, odourless specimens that preserve intricate anatomical details and can be studied for decades. For students, plastinated specimens provide an opportunity to examine real human anatomy outside of a traditional dissection lab.
Dr. Chandra spent a year on sabbatical at Queen’s University learning about the process and creating specimens.
“To be able to see [anatomy] and hold it is different from looking at an image or a model.”
A decade later, after years of persistence, she travelled to Germany during another sabbatical to study under Gunther von Hagens.
He is the inventor of plastination and creator of the international Body Worlds exhibitions.
“One day I said to him that I’d like to take some specimens back to my students and he said I could take half of whatever I produced,” she said. “That was a big incentive.”
Dr. Chandra focused on creating specimens that would help students better understand the structures they would encounter in their anatomy classes.
“I wanted to make sure that everything I taught, or that they would need to know, they could see it,” she said.
Today the specimens continue to support teaching and learning within the Faculty of Medicine, while also helping the public better understand the complexity of the human body.
Body Works open house
The Sept. 19 event will showcase specimens from Dr. Chandra’s collection and offer visitors a unique look at the structure and function of the human form.
Body Works, which will also include interactive demonstrations from Memorial University partners, is free of charge and open to all ages; however, registration is required.
Free parking is available in lot 30 and levels two and three of lot 27.
