Over the past few years my family has spent too much time in the company of medical professionals.  So I know firsthand that navigating through the minefield off terminology used by doctors and surgeons can be a difficult and daunting task.  I’m sure you’ve all heard someone mention a doctor’s “bedside manner” before but I’ve never heard anyone talk about their “diagnosis-side manner” – the ability of a doctor to clearly describe to laymen options and the trade offs for treating the diagnosed condition.  Now we have a tool to help make it a little easier to understand what they are talking about: Visible Body.

Think of it as Google Earth for the body, but thankfully without the photo-realism!  Visible Body allows Internet Explorer users to visually navigate through the human body using a 3D interface.  You can select which systems (layers) or anatomical elements to display, search for individual items, or just browse through our internals to find what you are looking for.  I’d recommend skimming through the brief help information first because the controls aren’t quite as intuitive as Google Earth (use space bar + mouse drag to reposition instead of panning the view?) but overall the interface is pretty polished for a beta.  The one major feature still missing is non-graphical information about the item you are viewing.  For that you will still need to head over to Wikipedia or one of the medical dictionaries to complete your education.

The tool is obviously intended for teachers and people in the medical field, but they are also aware that laypeople like us are part of their target market.  When signing up one of options for explaining your intended usage was

Understand information from health care professionals

They knew we were coming!

Via gHacks