Mid-America College of Funeral Service (Jeffersonville, Indiana), one of three Pierce institutions, recently brought 21st century hands-on, practical applications to the classroom with an all-new, state-of-the-art preparation lab. In addition to the varied degree programs offered by Pierce, this lab room will now offer practical and near accurate training using advanced equipment and tools.

The “learn by doing” approach is the foundation of Pierce Mortuary Colleges. All three schools – Mid-America, Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service (Decatur, Georgia) and Dallas Institute of Funeral Service (Dallas, Texas) – now have similar lab rooms.

Don Madelung, president and COO of Pierce Mortuary Colleges, is excited about the timeliness of the lab’s opening. “We are now challenged with getting students back on campus after so many months of virtual education,” he said. “We are enormously proud of our distance-learning program, but this new prep room is something Mid-America students can look forward to as they return to in-person learning.”

The project, begun in 2020, was managed by Mid-America President Mitch Mitchell to its completion in December 2021; the lab officially went online for student use in January 2022.

The Duncan Stuart Todd Company developed the embalming equipment, and students will also have the added advantage of working with SynDaver, a synthetic human product that reproduces the human anatomy with remarkable accuracy by utilizing highly realistic synthetic tissues called SynTissue. SynDaver includes extraordinary features that allow for realistic learning, such as customizable pathologies and injuries, an injectable vascular system for arterial embalming procedures, cosmetic feature settings, body cavity compatibility for clinical embalming and limitless reuse with proper care and maintenance.

Mid-America Program Director Melissa Traino said students are the ones who will benefit most, especially those who never have the chance to be exposed to an embalming preparatory lab until they are affiliated with a funeral home. “Our students will now get comfortable in a lab, with the instruments, the machinery, ask their questions and really experience a deep dive into the science of embalming and preservation procedures,” she said.