Head and neck anatomy courses for residents

[koojo]

Can someone give the pros and cons of the head and neck course in Indianapolis and the one in Iowa? The Indianapolis one seems to be a 1 week course but covers broad topics including flaps and plastics, and the Iowa one is 2 weeks but seems very much anatomy oriented. Any info would be appreciated.

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[koojo]

As a follow up, I went to the Indianapolis course and it was great. I highly recommend it.

 

[HighPriest]

I went to the Iowa course as an R2 (that was a while back). Didn't see this thread until now, and so while it's not helpful for the OP, maybe someone else will read it.

The Iowa course was a good course with a great anatomy lab (cadavers and what-not). It wasn't very helpful for me as an R2. There were some useful points, but by that time I already knew most of what they told me. It would be very helpful for an R1. Think of it as a directed med school anatomy course with some minimal ENT-related clinical info (very minimal). A lot of people in the class were foreign grads who benefitted from learning anatomy in the US, and some of them were foreign physicians/dentists/radiologists who were there for the same reason proir to repeating their residencies.

 

[neutropeniaboy]

In my opinion, the best way to learn anatomy is to see it unfold before you during surgery.

When I was a pgy2, I would get into the OR as much as possible to watch or participate in the surgeries. Many times it was just watching. If there was a surgery going on while I was on call, I did my best to be in the OR and letting consults that weren't urgent/emergent wait.

There are days when I'm in the OR with a chief and the juniors are nowhere to be found. Usually the chief knows what's going on, and typically the junior is doing menial tasks that can wait. There sometimes is a sentiment that if the junior isn't going to get to do anything then the experience isn't valuable.

Anyway, show up to the OR. There's always great anatomy there.

Beyond that, look for particular papers that focus on limited aspects of anatomy. For example, there are tons of great papers on the anatomy of the facial nerve or anatomy of the trigeminal nerve. Always good stuff.