Joel Talsma, MS-HAPI

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Joel Talsma is an Anatomist at Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine. He brings more than 15 years of experience in osteopathic medical education. He was previously Assistant Professor at Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine (2015–2019). There, he co-created the COAR curriculum (Clinical Skills, Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, Anatomy, and Radiology), which won the Society of Osteopathic Medical Educators Innovation Award, and launched a medical imaging website for students. He then joined the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine as Assistant Clinical Professor and was promoted to Associate Clinical Professor through university-wide review. At UNE he was Block Lead Anatomist, built a library of more than 40 hours of dissection modules, and developed ultrasound procedure labs. He holds an M.S. in Human Anatomy and Physiology Instruction from Northeast College of Health Sciences.

His research is cadaver-based and focuses on the neural anatomy behind spine, pain, and surgical interventions. It began at UNE, where his prosection work supported studies of thoracic facet joint innervation, dorsal sacral plexus variability, and sacroiliac joint innervation. His later studies of the articular branches to the thoracic zygapophysial joints, the S1 dorsal foramen, and the basivertebral nerve of the sacrum appear in Pain Medicine and Interventional Pain Medicine. Two of them won Best Abstract awards at the Spine Intervention Society Annual Meeting, in 2017 and 2025. His work also extends to pediatric and thoracic surgery. With pediatric surgeons, he described a “forgotten” branch of the intercostal nerve that affects cryoablation nerve blocks during pectus excavatum repair. That work was published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery and presented to the Chest Wall International Group in Barcelona and led to a re-engineering of medical devices. He has also contributed anatomical work on T3 endoscopic thoracic ganglionectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis. Since 2017 he has taken part in the Fascial Net Plastination Project in Guben, Germany, an international effort to create the first plastinated specimens of the human fascial system. He is also trained in Thiel soft-fix embalming, which preserves tissue for realistic procedural training.

Professor Talsma is a faculty anatomist for the International Pain and Spine Intervention Society (IPSIS). He co-authored a chapter in the IPSIS Technical Manual and Atlas of Interventional and Spine Pain Procedures and has presented on thoracic facet innervation and discovertebral pain at IPSIS annual meetings. He has taught in more than ten Spine Intervention Society cadaveric bio-skills courses. Since 2020, he has taught anatomy to osteopathic practitioners in Milan, Italy, through the Advanced Osteopathy Institute, and he has led multi-day anatomy sessions at the American Academy of Osteopathy Convocation. He has also served as an anatomical investigator on GLP translational spine research.

The author of more than 18 publications, Professor Talsma mentors students in donor-lab research. His forensic background spans more than two decades, including work as a forensic autopsy technician, a lead surgical pathology technician, and a Medical Examiner investigator for the State of Maine. That experience informs his approach to anatomical research and teaching.

Professional Profile: LinkedIn, Google Scholar