Anatomy- tips for mastering?

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For those who have taken it, anything you wish you would've known beforehand/done differently? Since it'll be the first course for a lot of us, any tips for doing well/acclimating quickly to med school?

 

[Conjuctiva]

lol for a sec i thought i read "-tips for masturbating" haha

 

[Isoprop]

quick search--

for practicals: lab time + anatomy atlas
for written: lecture notes + moore's blue boxes

 

[Zweisamkeit]

For those who have taken it, anything you wish you would've known beforehand/done differently? Since it'll be the first course for a lot of us, any tips for doing well/acclimating quickly to med school?

In addition to what Isoprop said...

Repetition, repetition, repetition.

Netter's Flashcards are also good for downtime such as waiting to catch the bus.

I also found going to the anatomy lab on the weekend with other people to be extremely helpful. 👍

 

[bodonid]

go to lab alot, and make sure to review the class concepts verbally (tutoring others or reviewing with others) while in lab.

 

[Isoprop]

Everyone has different methods to succeed in anatomy. OP, just go and experiment. Find out what works for you. Pick and choose which resources to use, study, and practice.

Popular Textbooks:
Big Moore/Baby Moore- has those blue boxes that may help with exams
Student Gray's- very complete, pictures/explanations are nice

Dissector: I think everyone uses Grant's

Atlases:
Netters- classic and recommended by most, very detailed
Rohen- for pictures of actual dissections, easy to self quiz because labels are numbered and you can cover up the list (some skip lab and study practicals straight from this book; don't do this unless you find lab to be redundant)

Flashcards: Netter's, again, is a classic thought a little incomplete IMO.

Websites:
Go to the sticky. I highly recommend Netanatomy, especially for films like arteriograms. You need a subscription from your university though.

Don't think you have to use ALL of these resources. Ask the second years what they thought were useful. Also, most of the books are available at the library.

Oh, and one tip. You might want to ask your lab group to pitch in and buy a "wet" copy of the dissector, and keep it in lab. That way, you don't bring part of your cadaver home every night.

Edit: Just a caveat that cadavers won't look like pictures in Rohen that cherry pick the perfect specimens. Also, there's quite a bit of variation from cadaver to cadaver especially with vessels. Take a look at other bodies when you can.

And I never found a good cross-sectional anatomy resource except for a few websites (again, from the sticky above).

 

[TexasTriathlete]

Live in the lab. Look at every body as much as you can. I don't care how tedious it is, or how much of a pain in the ass it is, or how bad it smells, or how gross some of the bodies are. Go over them as much as possible, with like one or two other people. That is all.

For supplemental sources, use Acland videos, U of Michigan videos, and U of Wisconsin videos. Don't sit there and try and learn from staring at Netter. It is pointless. Rohen is a little better, but still not that great.

 

[bodonid]

i will say that going to neuro labs was pretty pointless, though. For neuroanatomy, you can get just about everything down using atlases.

 

[doctor311]

Reviewing and knowing the gist of what I would cover the following day in lab was a huge help for me, rather than going in cold.

I agree with the other folks that conversing outloud with fellow students is a huge help!

If you are good with flashcards, get the complete Netter's Anatomy set (be careful to buy the complete one and not one of the subsets that only covers one body system). Its only like 30 or 40 bucks. They helped me a ton and were great for rapid review.

Almost to second year, then we finally get to make fun of the first years for smelling so bad

 

[iheartmpls]

lol for a sec i thought i read "-tips for masturbating" haha

eek me too!

 

[HPSPpayissues]

eek me too!

You guys don't have much time to spank it or get some these days, do yall?

 

[Ryu02ETL]

For those who have taken it, anything you wish you would've known beforehand/done differently? Since it'll be the first course for a lot of us, any tips for doing well/acclimating quickly to med school?

Try to learn the material before going into the lab. That way you can integrate the information while dissecting and identifying objects of the body (instead of mindlessly dissecting for hours). I highly recommend watching these videos ==> http://www.anatomy.wisc.edu/courses/gross/ before dissecting parts/areas of interest. It will give you a better idea of where nerves/vessels/etc. are located. In general, the more time one spends in the lab, the better one does on the practical exam. Your professors are not going to tag pictures from Rohen's or Netter's, so get used to looking/touching/holding the actual body. Many times there will be variations between bodies in the lab, so it will benefit you to make yourself acquainted with other people's cadavers.

As far as resources go, I bought Netters and Rohens, but preferred Netters. I never used Rohens and all it did was collect dust. It's a personal preference though. Some of my classmates used Rohen's as their primary atlas.

Textbooks = I went with Moore's Essential and BRS Gross Anatomy. I used both, but if I had to recommend one over the other, I would go with BRS. The information is much more concise, and most of the information from Moore's "blue boxes" can be found in BRS in some form or another. Moreover, the BRS book contains great practice questions at the end of each chapter.

I suggest taking a look at these books in your library to see which ones you think will help you the most. That way you won't waste any money like I did with Rohens.

Practice questions = http://anatomy.med.umich.edu/courseinfo/mich_quiz_index.html

To make sure you are learning the material efficiently, try to teach the information to your classmates or challenge them with questions during lab time. If you can do any of these things without any problem, then you've learned the material well enough to move onto other topics. If 1-2 of your lab members are dissecting, instead of just sitting around and watching, you can shoot them with quiz questions.

Hope this information helps

 

[turkeyjerky]

Don't let other people make you feel bad if you don't like going to lab outside of the required time. It doesn't help for everyone and you shouldn't worry that you'll be missing out on something magical.

Honestly, I think that Netter's and your course pack (if they don't have one at your school you could get the BRS) are plenty. A lot of people overburden themselves with too many resources--this takes time away from memorization, which is what anatomy is really all about (don't let anyone fool you and tell you that you have to "understand" anything).

Definitely do those practice questions on the UMich site though, in fact, do as many practice questions as possible throughout medical school.

 

[MilkmanAl]

The dissector was amazing for our written exams, but it's becoming clear that our written tests were different than most. Michigan's questions are definitely great, too. I used Rohen's and lab time for practicals. It doesn't get better than that, in my opinion, but you'll probably need Netter's for some of the more complex and/or hidden structures.

 

[fahimaz7]

e-anatomy.org.

 

[copingmethods]

e-anatomy.org.

This looks like it's mostly CTs and MRIs - are these helpful for 1st year anatomy? Is it worth paying for the subscription? I could imagine test questions where they give you a CT or MRI along w/ a case or something I guess.

 

[TMP-SMX]

This looks like it's mostly CTs and MRIs - are these helpful for 1st year anatomy? Is it worth paying for the subscription? I could imagine test questions where they give you a CT or MRI along w/ a case or something I guess.

Depends on your test format. We had cross sections, MRIs, X-Rays, and CTs as images on our practical with an arrow pointing to something we had to identify.

 

[coldweatherblue]

yeah we had CTs/X-rays/MRIs on every practical and written exam. They were mostly easy though.. occasionally they'd throw us something totally out there but for the most part the radiographs were straight-forward.

The best strategy for learning anatomy for me was to just make it part of your everyday life. envision the location/relationships of what you're studying on yourself and people around you.. trace the path of blood going from the LV -> systemic circulation (and all arteries and anastomoses) and back to the RV. When you hit your elbow and feel a tingle up to your pinkie and 1/2 of ring fingers, remember that you just compressed the *ulnar* nerve, coming from the medial cord of the brachial plexus.. going superficial to the medial condyle.. largest unprotected nerve, etc. Just think about it, visualize all this stuff in 3D in your head, know all the latin names/innervations/clinical correlates, and you'll do fine.

 

[bodonid]

yeah we had CTs/X-rays/MRIs on every practical and written exam. They were mostly easy though.. occasionally they'd throw us something totally out there but for the most part the radiographs were straight-forward.

.

they were our hardest questions. They gave us a lateral x-ray through the skull, pointed somewhere around the sphenoid, and the question said "identify". Answer was sella tursica, but the clinoids weren't visible and you couldn't really make out the pituitary fossa. Three people got the question right out of 190.

 

[copingmethods]

So would it be worth buying the subscription to that e-anatomy site?

 

[Slade]

So would it be worth buying the subscription to that e-anatomy site?

you can register for free. the subscription is to have it full screen. there really is no need for the higher quality, the free quality is fine