anatomy practicals

[amyliz]

Anyone have suggestions for doing well on anatomy practicals? Ours are timed (1 min per structure), and no matter how much time I spend in lab, with Netters/Rohen's/Grant's (yes, I have all three), etc. the practicals keep killing me. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

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[ms1finally]

Get the anatomy coloring book. Color it in. Cover the structures in Netter (or Rohen's) and quiz yourself on them. Depending upon the instructional dynamic, ask your professor to pimp you during lab. If you are going into the lab to study, make sure you go with other people. It also may depend on what region the practical involves, some regions have been much easier than others thus far (I'm an MS1 as well). Good luck.

 

[Rendar5]

Just go up to a body that doesn't belong to ur group. And figure out every single structure on it that you can see, without looking at an anatomy book. Then ask people in the group if u're right about the structures u named.

 

[TruTrooper]

Just go up to a body that doesn't belong to ur group. And figure out every single structure on it that you can see, without looking at an anatomy book. Then ask people in the group if u're right about the structures u named.

I agree that this is the way to go. Study all of the bodies in your lab and have at least one other person with you during the rounds. Have other students to give you a tour of their cadaver. Most students tend to be happy to show you all of the structures they know on their cadaver since it reinforces their learning.
Once they show you the structures, regurgitate it back to the student and have the student correct you if you get it wrong. Go again until you get it right then move on to the next cadaver. Try to go over function and innervations also if you have time.

 

[drguy22]

anatomy practials are supposed to be easy...that is...IF you put the time into it. We just had our first anatomy practical last week. We had 1 min to identify and answer a question about it ( eg. 1A. wat is this nerve, 1B what does it innervate) i thought i failed it miserable, but got a 88, go figure...

the key is just becoming best friends with ur cadaver...he/she is your silent teacher and u should go see other bodies once u know urs cold

 

[unoriginal]

Anyone have suggestions for doing well on anatomy practicals? Ours are timed (1 min per structure), and no matter how much time I spend in lab, with Netters/Rohen's/Grant's (yes, I have all three), etc. the practicals keep killing me. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

our exams are the same way. it sounds like your problem is that you rely on your books too much. no book can replace actually learning on the cadaver. i have done well by basically learning every structure the same day we are assigned. so if we have 30 items to find on monday, i make sure i can find all those by the end of lab.

also, by the end of the week i try and stay after on the last lab day of the week and find all the structures on different bodies. then, when you go home find the stuff in rohen. also as someone else said, as you go over the structures (for the second or third time- not the first time through) go over innervation, blood flow, and function of the structure. review often! repetition is key.

it is also really helpful to work with other people- as long as they stay on task.

 

[njbmd]

Anyone have suggestions for doing well on anatomy practicals? Ours are timed (1 min per structure), and no matter how much time I spend in lab, with Netters/Rohen's/Grant's (yes, I have all three), etc. the practicals keep killing me. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Hi there,
When you study anatomy for the practical, try to be aware of things that are around structures. Instructors do not just tag things, there are other things there that should give you a hint. Be aware of the surrounding structures.

When you learn muscles, look at a skeleton. Review the origin and insertion as well as the innervation and how the nerves run. When I am operating, I have to be aware of what structures might be damaged if I am not careful. Do the same thing with your body.

Follow the above suggestion of looking at other bodies. Take a particular area and teach it to one of your tankmates or study partners. Try to have a study partner from another group. Share bodies and dissections.

Get a group of three more students and get an instructor to quiz you before the exam. Ask the instructor to be brutal. Watch how they pick out structures and follow their methods.

Finally, preview before you go to lab. Take your dissector and sketch out the structures that you should find using Nettor as a guide. Look at Rohen to give you an idea of size.

Fine tune your study the week before the test. Learn the zebras then. Make a list of bodies that have good dissections of areas and ask their groups to share. Get help from anyone who is willing to work with you.

Good luck!
njbmd

 

[dancindr]

Working with other people and on multiple cadavers is very important. Last year, we would go into the lab (preferably when there weren't lots of other people there) and we would all tag a structure from the hitlist on a different body then everybody went around and tried to figure them out. Quizzing yourself really helps! It also helped to have an upperclassman to tag structures for you.
I bombed my first practical due to not studying enough and getting really sick the week before, but made an A on the second and third (which are supposed to be harder) using the above method plus careful dissecting and lots of time with Netter!

 

[tupac_don]

Anyone have suggestions for doing well on anatomy practicals? Ours are timed (1 min per structure), and no matter how much time I spend in lab, with Netters/Rohen's/Grant's (yes, I have all three), etc. the practicals keep killing me. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Learn the anatomy landmarks real well. Ask someone to show you all the structures you are responsible for at least on one body. Have a really good idea where structures are found, so then you can guess if needed. I mean if you know where valeculla are located, you should be able to find them. If you are having trouble, know locations of structures. Like if you see a nerve coming on the posterior side of humerus, and it's a big nerve, it's a pretty safe bet that it's a radial N. So know where things are located and anatomical landmarks, that way you will find em eazy. Best of luck.

 

[Wiggy73]

Tag lists from previous years are really helpful. Also, knowing what's good on other bodies comes in handy because a lot of the time that's what the profs tag. Our TAs get a list of five good structures from each team's body and give us a practice practical, and at least half of their tags were on the real thing.

 

[raidermedic]

It's easier to know where things should be then what they look like. So for instance if you get a tagged structure your throught process should go like this. "OK is it a nerve or artery (muscles should be obvious and veins are super low yield). Then decide what nerve or artery runs in that area. If you need to narrow it down still try looking for the origin and insertion. If you still haven't narrowed it down pick the most clinically important of the possibilities.

 

[mackie]

I recommend seeking advice from some of the second, third, and fourth years at your school. They are an excellent source of info and can also possibly provide some practicals to you from previous years.

 

[redgrover]

Yes, sometimes your instructors decide to leave you hints. And other times they hack your body apart and leave no surrounding structures, so you're sink or swim.

Better know origin-insertions cold and be able to spit them out in a hurry.

I find that I do better in lab and in the practicals when I review the written material BEFORE I go into lab to study things. That way I have a solid foundation to build upon when I go into lab.

I hate anatomy. I hate biochem. Phys is cool. Embryo is alright. Histo? Average.

Med school kind of stinks, to be honest.

 

[OnMyWayThere]

Here is why my practical portion was always higher than my written:

1.) Know relationships! Know that x nerve runs between a and b muscles, just deep to y muscle, etc. This will make you golden.

2.) During the practical - SPEND 15 SECONDS TO ORIENT YOURSELF. You will have time to answer the question still. DO NOT try to ID the structure within the first 15 seconds (even if you think it's obvious). ORIENT YOURSELF (front of the leg, medial portion, deep, etc.). This will really help you.

3.) KNOW RELATIONSHIPS.

Integrate these with your current studying of spending a lot time in lab with your netters and bodies and you should be just fine.

P.S. Try and get the old practical keys from upperclassmen. This is helpful too but not nearly as important as the above.

 

[amyliz]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I spend time after every dissection walking around the lab looking at other bodies, and spend a minimum of 2 hours in the lab both saturday and sunday with two friends when we all quiz each other. For the last practical, every station I went to I looked ahead to get an idea of the general area was (pelvis, posterior leg, anterior thigh, etc) and then made myself ID the structure type and 2 or 3 surrounding structures before even thinking about what it was. From what everyone I've talked to has said, I'm doing everything right, but somehow it's not working...

Whoever said that anatomy practicals were supposed to be easy...I want to go to your school! Our practicals have things like, say, we dissected the layers of the foot from the plantar surface, but then they decided it would be fun to tag an interossei through the dorsal surface. How can you prepare for stuff like that, since we can't randomly dissect things in different ways?

 

[skypilot]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I spend time after every dissection walking around the lab looking at other bodies, and spend a minimum of 2 hours in the lab both saturday and sunday with two friends when we all quiz each other. For the last practical, every station I went to I looked ahead to get an idea of the general area was (pelvis, posterior leg, anterior thigh, etc) and then made myself ID the structure type and 2 or 3 surrounding structures before even thinking about what it was. From what everyone I've talked to has said, I'm doing everything right, but somehow it's not working...

I found spending almost a whole day in the lab with the TAs in the days before the practical did the trick. Go to four or five of the in-lab review sessions. The TAs won't steer you wrong. In a way the dissection doesn't really matter. You need to learn the cadavers as they are in the days before the exam.

 

[unoriginal]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I spend time after every dissection walking around the lab looking at other bodies, and spend a minimum of 2 hours in the lab both saturday and sunday with two friends when we all quiz each other. For the last practical, every station I went to I looked ahead to get an idea of the general area was (pelvis, posterior leg, anterior thigh, etc) and then made myself ID the structure type and 2 or 3 surrounding structures before even thinking about what it was. From what everyone I've talked to has said, I'm doing everything right, but somehow it's not working...

Whoever said that anatomy practicals were supposed to be easy...I want to go to your school! Our practicals have things like, say, we dissected the layers of the foot from the plantar surface, but then they decided it would be fun to tag an interossei through the dorsal surface. How can you prepare for stuff like that, since we can't randomly dissect things in different ways?

When they tag something crazy like this, you really have to think, "what structures are in this area?" Then, eliminate choices.

At our school, the 2nd years that did the best in anatomy put on practice practicals before each exam so that we know what to expect. Also, don't be afraid to ask one of your profs down in lab to pimp you on things. Ask them to point to structures as they would be done in the exam. Practice and repitition makes perfect!

 

[sakura181]

Everyone's suggestions are great and I don't have too much extra to add in terms of making use of lab time. But I do have a link to a nice anatomy practical quizzing website that helped me out when studying for anatomy practicals:

http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/quiz.htm

It's not as interactive as actually going into the lab but it's also not as passive as looking at your atlas. Great when you don't want to go into lab but still want to quiz yourself.

 

[Nittany Lion]

Everyone's suggestions are great and I don't have too much extra to add in terms of making use of lab time. But I do have a link to a nice anatomy practical quizzing website that helped me out when studying for anatomy practicals:

http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/quiz.htm

It's not as interactive as actually going into the lab but it's also not as passive as looking at your atlas. Great when you don't want to go into lab but still want to quiz yourself.

LOVE this website...I use it all the time and I think it helps a great deal. Personally, my biggest problem is that although I'm going into lab all the time outside of class, I think that maybe I'm having a hard time correctly identifying stuff while I'm studying because sometimes I get in there and our dissections aren't great and it just looks like a pile of mush to me. That's where a good dissection website or a photo atlas comes in. I also prefer the above website (which has sequential photos of dissections that you can click through) over dissection videos because I tend to zone out during the videos.

Too bad it's the pile of mush and not the pretty pictures that we're actually being tested on, though. I wish I could say I'm kicking butt on my practical exams and had more great advice to offer I hate to make excuses, but I have kind of decided that the element of performance anxiety that goes along with a timed exam like this is just always going to make it really freakin hard, no matter how prepared I think I am going into it.

 

[DoctorFunk]

http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/quiz.htm

It's not as interactive as actually going into the lab but it's also not as passive as looking at your atlas. Great when you don't want to go into lab but still want to quiz yourself.

Great resource sakura. Much appreciated!

 

[fun8stuff]

Everyone's suggestions are great and I don't have too much extra to add in terms of making use of lab time. But I do have a link to a nice anatomy practical quizzing website that helped me out when studying for anatomy practicals:

http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/quiz.htm

It's not as interactive as actually going into the lab but it's also not as passive as looking at your atlas. Great when you don't want to go into lab but still want to quiz yourself.

karma points to you!

 

[nebrfan]

Everyone's suggestions are great and I don't have too much extra to add in terms of making use of lab time. But I do have a link to a nice anatomy practical quizzing website that helped me out when studying for anatomy practicals:

http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/quiz.htm

It's not as interactive as actually going into the lab but it's also not as passive as looking at your atlas. Great when you don't want to go into lab but still want to quiz yourself.

Nice website - helps some - but, damn, do I wish the questions on our practicals were anywhere close to being this easy!