If you are looking for the Medical Tourism blog.. it is the previous posting!! I have two stories running today but only one blog so the stories have to share. :-)

OMSI Body Worlds 3 info/tickets/background: http://www.omsi.edu/visit/featured/bodyworlds/

I wrote this yesterday on the plane...

I'm writing the bulk of this on the flight home because I want as much of the exhibit to be fresh in my mind as possible.

Well, that and the flight is not all that long so I can't really watch a movie. But let me tell you.. as I mentioned in my previous blog posting, first-class is pretty sweet. I better not get used to this. I can't afford it!!

Okay, back to the serious stuff. Before I trot out the link to my email address so you can share your thoughts, I do want to give you this caveat. I think very few people will be ambivalent about this exhibit. Either you will rush to see it or you will refuse. I think only a few will be 'on the fence' so to speak.

I also think I need to point out that it's kind of tough to ask you how you feel about it considering you can't actually see it yet. But, that won't stop me.

Click here to sound off: sstricklen@kgw.com

Here's the more complete version of how we got there, etc.. OMSI originally emailed me to ask if I wanted a free trip to Phoenix to do an advancer story on Body Worlds. I wanted the exclusive access, but we couldn't accept the generous offer of a free trip because of the conflict of interest it creates in reporting the story. I mean, how are you supposed to trust that my story is an accurate depiction if someone gave us a 'free ride' there. So I worked with my news director who readily paid our own way there to meet with the OMSI folks. Best of both worlds and the ethically correct decision.

We met Elaina (in OMSI marketing) at the airport and set about telling this story. Overall, our access was great. I had done a fair bit of homework before hand so I knew what to expect and I had a grasp of both sides of the ethical debate. This was the 'gravy'-- seeing what it was that was generating all the buzz.

We spent *hours* shooting this story. I mean hours. We wanted to capture every last little detail and moment. The station paid a lot of money to send us to Phoenix and we weren't about to blow it by not shooting enough.

Not to do the "I-love-KGW" song and dance, but I don't know how many other stations would have ponied up the funds to cover a story like this.

Okay, the pilot just said we are in our final descent. Gotta 'fly'.

Again: weigh in here:

sstricklen@kgw.com

I asked photojournalist Kurt Austin to kindly write a bit about his perceptions of the exhibit. We work as a team, and often you only hear from me.

As TV photojournalist, you always are looking for interesting, visually compelling, and emotionally challenging subjects to take pictures of—and boy did I find it in the Body Worlds 3 exhibit in Phoenix, the exhibit that will be at OMSI next month. To view bodies, sans skin, is an amazing thing. We are so complex. You can see how every muscle connects to the next, how the simple movement of throwing a javelin, keeping yourself balanced on a gymnasts balance beam or diving for a loose soccer ball, needs the cooperation of every part of your body. As I shot video of one exhibit after the next, I witnessed people trying to mimic the facial expressions of the plasticized bodies, trying to feel the muscles in their own faces and how they work together. Many touring the exhibit would see the artificial hip, and comment about the one in their own bodies, or the one older gentleman who was enamoured with the body of a woman who had metal braces and pins attached to her broken bones. He said he had the same brace in his wrist. I have a personal interest in some of the exhibits displayed, as my mother had two hip replacements and a kidney transplant. I studied the artificial hips and the display of diseased kidneys for a long time. My father is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and to study the brain was comforting in a way. So complex. Two women commented on the display of the nerve endings that branched out from the brain like a spidery tree. You could now imagine how people become paraplegics or quadraplegics after a serious accident. One display was of a young boy that featured his blood vessels. An amazing site to see. Blood red vessels ran from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes. As I was shooting, I couldn’t stop thinking about how these people died. They looked like they were in the prime of their lives and in fantastic shape (at least their muscles were). That was a little disturbing. As we finished shooting for the day, I felt as though I accomplished what a TV Photojournalist is always looking for---something interesting, visually compelling, and especially, emotionally challenging. Kurt Austin KGW-TV Photojournalist

And finally, I sat next to a very nice gentleman on the return flight. I had a bunch of coffee before I left Phoenix and frankly, I don't drink much caffiene so I was a chatty-cathy-nightmare next door neighbor. He was a great sport. He rents out a villa in Costa Rica: http://www.villamanana.com/

I was like, "Wow, that's really cool. Too bad I'm never going to Costa Rica."

He was curious about that and I told him about my botfly phobia. Remember the botfly video?? As in the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my entire 33 years on this planet??

Click here, but you've been warned.. it is SUPER gross: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkx16NhxIMU

Click here if you, too, are afraid of the botfly.