Next semester, Oakland University medical students will be working with the dead in order to learn how to save the living.

The medical school will offer a program in which its students will work alongside the trained specialists of the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office to conduct autopsies.

The interactive, hands-on program will teach students not only about autopsies, but also the inner-workings of the body.

A brand new, state-of-the-art facility, located about 20 minutes from campus, will house the program. The facility is filled with brand new equipment and expert pathologists, ready to teach medical students studying pathology, neuroscience or working on their capstone project.

Dr. Robert Folberg, dean of medicine and professor of pathology, ophthalmology and biomedical sciences, said the partnership aims to be a teaching tool, rather than a training tool.

“This partnership has the potential to enhance medical student education,” he said. “It gives students access to a research venue and it can help greatly with student’s capstone projects.”

Folberg also said many other schools have adopted similar partnerships with their local medical examiners and have seen great results from them.

The opportunity to observe and learn from the autopsies is not limited to those students studying pathology, though.

Folberg said students who are interested in becoming crisis counselors could observe the autopsy of someone who has been a victim of domestic violence, which might give them a deeper understanding of the effects and results.

“And we are very excited to be able to combine (the Medical Examiner’s) expertise with Oakland University’s medical students … we can show them how a metropolitan medical examiner’s office functions and they can view the autopsies. Most importantly, they can learn from the autopsies,” Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said.

Patterson said the idea was brought to the table about six months ago and will go into effect in about six more, due to funding from various grants and from Oakland County tax money.

This program will go into effect Sept. 4.

Follow staff intern Dylan Dulberg on Twitter @dyldude64.