Blood testing, limb amputation, angioplasty and even a hands-on autopsy on an artificial cadaver were some of the fascinating activities on offer this weekend as budding clinicians and anatomists from across the county headed to Truro High School to get taste of a career under the knife.

Nearly 120 pupils from Bodmin to Cape Cornwall joined the school for two intensive one-day workshops offering them the rare opportunity to follow an in-depth medical course that truly brings human anatomy to life.

Operating Theatre Live and the VIVIT Experience from Anatomy Lab Live saw the school’s hall transform into a functioning operating theatre and pathology lab as students undertook procedures on real anatomical specimens and life-size patient simulators.

Jon Dean, head of STEM, said: “It’s been a real eye opener into just how incredibly complex the human body is and invaluable experience for students hoping to embark on a medical career of any kind. On average, for every ten students applying to medicine at university, only one will be offered a place so it’s incredibly important to offer our medics unique experiences such as this to help them stand out from the crowd.”

Following the phenomenal success of Operating Theatre Live’s Cornish debut last December, this year’s programme was bigger and better than ever with a host of new sessions, never yet presented in the county.

It was also the first time in Cornwall for the VIVIT Experience which saw students taking part in a live, interactive post-mortem experience under the watchful eye of senior trainer Sam Piri and clinical pathophysiologist Scarlett Mellor.

Not for the faint-hearted, the workshop aimed to be as realistic as possible making use of samples from swine anatomy which were harvested ahead of being moved into VIVIT – a life size synthetic cadaver which was then dissected to teach the structure and function of the human body.

Operating Theatre Live founder and VIVIT creator, Sam Piri said: “We aim to really bridge the gap between school and university, giving students a sound understanding of how the anatomy and physiology which they learn about in their lessons actually transfers into clinical practices and how it affects pathologies.

"We speak to healthcare professionals and academics a lot and find that medical students say they understand the pathologies and clinical cases which they come into contact with on a daily basis far more when they have access to see certain anatomical structures quite literally in the flesh – it’s an experience which adds a great deal of value to classroom-based learning.”