Clinical Anatomy

[WWUViking1983]

Question for anyone who has completed their surgical rotation: how much of the anatomy that you needed to know for surgery came from your didactic anatomy courses? I'm just curious because we learn anatomy from a PhD anatomist, and although they address the "clinical relevance" of a lot of structures, there seems to be a disconnect between that and what we have been learning in our Physical Diagnosis courses. So I'm just curious how much of didactic anatomy is worth retaining in the front of my brain.

[marktheshark89]

Not very much IMO. You can read up on the cases you'll scrub in on the night before to review salient anatomy.

[SERENITY NOW]

Don't make the mistake of thinking that anatomy is only important for your surgery rotation!  As Mark said, the amount of anatomy that is relevant for any given surgery is quite limited and you'll be able to find it in surgical texts as well as netter references.  If you are curious about specific examples and want to reference it during a given section, check out Surgical Recall for the most condensed, relevant anatomy for the most common surgeries.  

 

Outside of surgery, anatomy is still very important.  However, I will admit you can definitely still prioritize the information by what you'll likely be using most in the future.  That of course depends on what specialty you'll be going into.  In the ER, it is really important to know your nerve anatomy and distribution of effect.  Every patient that comes in with focal numbness/tingling, weakness, or back pain w/ sciatica (and many other common presentations) will need  an evaluation that is geared to localizing central vs peripheral nerve distribution, which will be much easier if you know this cold.  Its also really important to know your vascular anatomy.  Patients will often come in with a cold limb and you have to know the arterial supply to test with palpation and ultrasound to localize the clot.  You'll have to know venous anatomy if you ever want to put in central lines or other vascular procedures.  I am also doing a lot of ultrasound, which requires a solid foundation of organ anatomy, for example in the gall bladder and biliary system with RUQ ultrasound.

 

So, I would recommend prioritizing nerve, vascular, and organ anatomy as the most important.  Bones are also important but you'll learn these by diffusion because you'll see it over and over again.  I have not had any need for remembering the specific muscle names, attachment sites, etc.  Its been sufficient just having a simplistic understanding in my head of how the muscles are situated and how their actions work.  Hope this helps!

 

-SN