Three medical students from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine are spending extra time this month in the school’s anatomy lab as part of a unique internship.
Jack Evans, Jackie Thomas, and Julianne Thomas – all rising M2s – are participating in the 2026 OUWB Clinical Anatomy Summer Internship Program.
The trio is prosecting a body donor’s anatomy for OUWB’s incoming Class of 2030 and creating video-based tutorials. It will be supplemental learning material for the OUWB Anatomical Foundations of Clinical Practice (AFCP) course.
The work the three are doing will be invaluable for OUWB’s incoming cohort of new medical students, said Jickssa Gemechu, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and internship director.
“The students who have this internship just finished their first year and passed through the process, so they know where the challenges are,” he said. “They are trying to make things easier for the incoming students so they can easily adapt and benefit from the (AFCP) course.”
First-year OUWB medical students begin working with the donors at the beginning of the school year. They are considered vital to providing students with hands-on learning experiences and the ability to see the diverse variations of the human body. The donors also are considered the students’ first patients. (For more on OUWB’s Body Donation Program, click here.)
"Through dissection students gain a deeper understanding of human anatomy that cannot be learned through textbooks, models, or technology," said Malli Barremkala, MBBS, associate professor, and founding director, Body Donation Program.
"Donors lay the foundation upon which future OUWB physicians develop their clinical knowledge, dissection skills, professionalism, and respect for the human body," he added. "Our donors' generosity continues to educate and inspire OUWB students, ultimately benefiting many patients for years to come."
The prosected donor will allow students to view what Gemechu called a “well dissected, well prepared” example that will help them with their own assigned donors. For example, if a student or students are having difficulty finding a specific structure, they can look to the prosected donor for help.
Similarly, the videos being created by the interns also will help the incoming first-year medical students with their donors. They are working on short, one-minute videos that each focus on a specific structure. The new videos being created will add to the school’s growing bank of such tutorials.
Julianne Thomas said she believes the new students will benefit from the supplemental materials, especially because they’re being created by those who are fresh off the course.
“We know what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we would have wanted,” she said.
Evans also said he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to reinforce what he learned in the lab during his first year.
“It was hard, but when it clicked it was so rewarding,” he said. “We want to create these additional materials to help make it click for others because it’s so much more valuable when you do understand everything that’s happening.”
Jackie Thomas agreed with the other two interns.
“I enjoyed the anatomy lab in the fall semester and thought it would be a good opportunity to be able to do all the dissections again,” she said.
“It’s been really cool to be able to help the future students, too.”
For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at [email protected].
To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing webpage.
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