University Cultural CollectionsTangible Evidence of Knowledge

R.A. Rodda Pathology Museum

The R.A.Rodda Museum of Pathology was established in 1966 by the foundation Professor of Pathology, Dr Roland Arnold Rodda (1917–93), as a teaching and research facility.  

The collection specialises in diseased organs from samples collected primarily through autopsies, and surgical specimens from the years soon after it was established. The current collection is around 2,700 items preserved in Wentworth’s solution and presented in perspex containers. Every organ system of the body is represented. 

In the late 1990s maintenance of the specimen collection had ceased and there was talk of its closure. In 2008, Dr Sorrel Standish-White, a former senior lecturer in pathology and the collection’s curator from 2011 to 2016, argued that three-dimensional specimens offered a much more visceral teaching tool than a digital image scan.  She raised government funds and set about organising the cleaning and restoring of the best specimens. 

The initial collection was driven by Rodda’s fascination with brain disease and the museum has a notable selection of specimens such as tumours, stroke and Huntington’s disease.  It also contains a human parasite collection.

The collection is used by medical and health professionals for teaching and research and is housed in the School of Medicine, Clinical Building, 43 Collins Street, Hobart.

Spotlight

Navigating the internal landscape an artistic interpretation of disease Academy Gallery Exhibition, February 2016

Arts Forum: An arts and health afternoon, Tasmanian College of the Arts, Inveresk Campus, February 2016

Professor R. Rodda collection Index: University of Tasmania Collection,  University Open Access Repository

Contact us

E pathology.museum@utas.edu.au

Tours of the museum are by appointment.  Currently tours are only available for medical and health professionals and medical, paramedical and health science students.