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Anatomical Sciences Education 2024At the University of Bristol, we established a novel dissection course to complement our anatomy degree. Students enrolled in this undergraduate course are trained as... (Review)
Review
At the University of Bristol, we established a novel dissection course to complement our anatomy degree. Students enrolled in this undergraduate course are trained as comparative anatomists, with equal time given to both human and veterinary anatomy. Historically, students opted to dissect either human or veterinary donors as part of the course. To fully reflect the comparative nature of the degree, the dissection course was redesigned so students could dissect both human and veterinary specimens as part of the same course. This facilitated a wide-ranging experience of anatomy, encouraging detailed knowledge of a multitude of species and allowing for multifaceted anatomy graduates to be ready for employment in a wide and competitive job market. Across three iterations of the amended version of the course, median marks ranged from 58.7% to 62.0%, with between 22 and 39 students enrolled. In comparison to the course prior to the introduction of the change, median marks ranged from 59.8% to 62.8%, with between 16 and 24 students enrolled. There was no significant difference between marks before or after the introduction of the concurrently comparative aspect. This paper describes the course, with learning materials and assessments considered, along with some reflection on its value. The course offers benefits to students by widening their perspective on anatomical knowledge and making them more equipped for the job market. It also broadens their understanding of form-function relationships. However, student feedback implied that having the choice between human or veterinary dissection was preferable, and this may outweigh the perceived benefits of the course.
Topics: Male; Humans; Dogs; Animals; Horses; Mice; Sheep; Anatomy; Anatomy, Comparative; Universities; Curriculum; Dissection; Education, Medical, Undergraduate; Students, Medical; Cadaver
PubMed: 38317576
DOI: 10.1002/ase.2392 -
Clinical Anatomy (New York, N.Y.) Apr 2024The aim of this study was to evaluate the content, quality, and functionality of YouTube videos on the anatomy of skull bones and to measure their educational...
The aim of this study was to evaluate the content, quality, and functionality of YouTube videos on the anatomy of skull bones and to measure their educational usefulness. In this cross-sectional study, the keywords "skull bones" and "skull anatomy" were searched in the YouTube search tab. Demographic data such as type, source, duration, upload date, and view rates of the videos were recorded. The quality and content of the videos were measured using the total content score (TCS), modified DISCERN scale, JAMA score, and Global Quality Scale (GQS). SPSS 26.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Twenty-five (34.7%) of the first 72 videos found by keyword searches were included in the study. According to the GQS criteria, six of them (24%) were considered useful and 19 (76%) not useful. There was a strong statistically significant correlation between the GQS and DISCERN scores (r = 0.813, p < 0.001). There were strong statistically significant positive correlations between TCS and GQS scores (r = 0.887, p < 0.001) and between TCS and modified DISCERN scores (r = 0.691, p < 0.001). Additionally, there was a moderately strong statistically significant positive correlation between GQS and JAMA scores (r = 0.507, p < 0.05). There were also moderately strong statistically significant correlations between JAMA score and DISCERN score (r = 0.521, p < 0.001), video length (r = 0.416, p < 0.05), number of comments (r = 0.457, p < 0.05), and number of "likes" (r = 0.608, p < 0.001). There was a moderately strong statistically significant positive correlation between TCS and JAMA scores (r = 0.431, p < 0.05). Most YouTube videos have insufficient information about skull bones to meet the expectations of medical and dental school curricula. Anatomists and institutions should be encouraged to prepare and present YouTube videos using assessment systems such as DISCERN, JAMA, GQS, and TCS, in line with current anatomy curricula.
Topics: Humans; Cross-Sectional Studies; Social Media; Skull; Students; Head; Reproducibility of Results; Video Recording; Information Dissemination
PubMed: 38308488
DOI: 10.1002/ca.24138 -
Clinical Anatomy (New York, N.Y.) Feb 2024Although Josias Weitbrecht described the retinacula of the hip joint in his 1742 Syndesmologia, the anatomist Cesare Amantini of Perugia specifically studied the medial...
Although Josias Weitbrecht described the retinacula of the hip joint in his 1742 Syndesmologia, the anatomist Cesare Amantini of Perugia specifically studied the medial retinacula he referred to as the pectineofoveal fold in a late 19th-century monograph. This particular synovial fold stretches from the lesser trochanter to the osteocartilaginous junction of the femoral head along a virtual line connecting the lesser trochanter and the fovea for the ligament of the head. Although mentioned by some anatomists and radiologists, and despite its possible involvement in specific hip joint pathologies (fractures, impingements), it is surprising that Amantini's pectineofoveal fold remains ignored by most anatomy and clinical anatomy books. This study aims to verify if Cesare Amantini effectively drew attention to this synovial fold for the first time and coined the term "pectineofoveal fold," as well as determine whether most classical textbooks (i.e., published from 1890 to 2017) acknowledge the discovery and include it in the description of the hip joint. A possible evolutionary link between this synovial fold and the ambiens and pectineus muscles exists and should be discussed.
PubMed: 38308470
DOI: 10.1002/ca.24139 -
BioRxiv : the Preprint Server For... Jan 2024One of the important yet labor intensive tasks in neuroanatomy is the identification of select populations of cells. Current high-throughput techniques enable marking...
One of the important yet labor intensive tasks in neuroanatomy is the identification of select populations of cells. Current high-throughput techniques enable marking cells with histochemical fluorescent molecules as well as through the genetic expression of fluorescent proteins. Modern scanning microscopes allow high resolution multi-channel imaging of the mechanically or optically sectioned brain with thousands of marked cells per square millimeter. Manual identification of all marked cells is prohibitively time consuming. At the same time, simple segmentation algorithms suffer from high error rates and sensitivity to variation in fluorescent intensity and spatial distribution. We present a methodology that combines human judgement and machine learning that serves to significantly reduce the labor of the anatomist while improving the consistency of the annotation. As a demonstration, we analyzed murine brains with marked premotor neurons in the brainstem. We compared the error rate of our method to the disagreement rate among human anatomists. This comparison shows that our method can reduce the time to annotate by as much as ten-fold without significantly increasing the rate of errors. We show that our method achieves significant reduction in labor while achieving an accuracy that is similar to the level of agreement between different anatomists.
PubMed: 38293051
DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.13.557658 -
Annals of Anatomy = Anatomischer... Apr 2024Berlin anatomist Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz (1836-1921) donated his skull, brain, and hands to his institute. Only the skull survives in the present-day collection. This...
INTRODUCTION
Berlin anatomist Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz (1836-1921) donated his skull, brain, and hands to his institute. Only the skull survives in the present-day collection. This study investigates the skull itself as much as the historical context of Waldeyer's donation.
METHODS
Physical-anthropological investigation of the remains and historical research.
RESULTS
Waldeyer's main motivation was the donation of his brain to science. While this was the first ever recorded body donation in Berlin, it was not unusual for scientists of his time to donate their brains and/or to investigate brains of fellow scientists to correlate brain morphology to individual traits. Nevertheless, Waldeyer's pupil Hans Virchow expressed reservations dissecting his former boss, reservations that were unknown to him when dissecting others. Waldeyer's brain was never investigated and not preserved, likely due to damage by stroke and poor anatomical fixation. Waldeyer's skull shows the common features of a male European of senile age with some notable anatomical variation including a "trigeminus bridge".
DISCUSSION
Waldeyer's donation is embedded in a tradition of research looking, if in vain, for traceable signs of intelligence or geniality in brains of well-known individuals. Reservations of anatomists to dissect other anatomists and to donate their own bodies persist until today.
Topics: Humans; Male; Anatomists; Tissue Donors; Brain; Skull; Head
PubMed: 38278306
DOI: 10.1016/j.aanat.2024.152209 -
Clinical Anatomy (New York, N.Y.) Apr 2024Almost 20% of the Latin nouns (193/993) in Terminologia Histologica (TH), the international standard nomenclature for human histology and cytology, display linguistic...
Almost 20% of the Latin nouns (193/993) in Terminologia Histologica (TH), the international standard nomenclature for human histology and cytology, display linguistic problems, particularly in the areas of orthography, gender, and declension. Some anatomists have opposed efforts to restore the quality of the Latin nomenclature as pedantry, preferring to create or modify Latin words so that they resemble words in English and other modern languages. A Latin microanatomical nomenclature is vulnerable to the criticism of anachronism, so the requirement for the use of authentic Latin, including derivation of new words from Greek and Latin words rather than from modern languages, if possible, may be even greater than it is for the anatomical nomenclature. The most common problem identified here appears to have been caused by derivation of Latin nouns by addition of -us and -um second declension endings to English words. Many Latin nouns (128) in TH contain one of six morphemes that have been treated this way even though the original Greek words are either first declension masculine or third declension neuter nouns. Ironically, deriving Latin nouns directly from Greek morphemes often results in words that look more familiar to speakers of Romance and Germanic languages than those derived indirectly through modern languages (e.g., astrocyte, collagene, dendrita, lipochroma, osteoclasta and telomere instead of astrocytus, collagenum, dendritum, lipochromum, osteoclastus, and telomerus).
Topics: Humans; Vocabulary; Language; Linguistics; Anatomists
PubMed: 38251059
DOI: 10.1002/ca.24137 -
Child's Nervous System : ChNS :... Jul 2024
Topics: Humans; History, 17th Century; History, 18th Century; Anatomy; Anatomists
PubMed: 38240788
DOI: 10.1007/s00381-024-06284-0 -
The Western Journal of Emergency... Jan 2024Despite the inclusion of both diagnostic and procedural ultrasound and regional nerve blocks in the original Model of the Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine (EM),...
INTRODUCTION
Despite the inclusion of both diagnostic and procedural ultrasound and regional nerve blocks in the original Model of the Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine (EM), there is no recommended standardized approach to the incorporation of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia (UGRA) education in EM training.
METHODS
We developed and implemented a structured curriculum for both EM residents and faculty to learn UGRA in a four-hour workshop. Each Regional Anesthesia Anatomy and Ultrasound Workshop was four hours in length and followed the same format. Focusing on common UGRA blocks, each workshop began with an anatomist-led cadaveric review of the relevant neuromusculoskeletal anatomy followed by a hands-on ultrasound scanning practice for the blocks led by an ultrasound fellowship-trained EM faculty member, fellow, or a postgraduate year (PGY)-4 resident who had previously participated in the workshop. Learners identified the relevant anatomy on point-of-care ultrasound and reviewed how to conduct the blocks. Learners were invited to complete an evaluation of the workshop with Likert-scale and open-ended questions.
RESULTS
In the 2020 academic year, six regional anesthesia anatomy and ultrasound workshops occurred for EM faculty (two sessions, N = 24) and EM residents (four sessions, N = 40, including a total of five PGY4s, 10 PGY3s, 12 PGY2s, and 13 PGY1s). Workshops were universally well-received by both faculty and residents. Survey results found that 100.0% of all responding participants indicated that they were "very satisfied" with the session. All were likely to recommend this session to a colleague and 95.08% of participants believed the session should become a required component of the EM curriculum.
CONCLUSION
The use of UGRA is increasing, and and it critical in EM. An interdisciplinary approach in collaboration with anatomists on an interactive, nerve block workshop incorporating both gross anatomy review and hands-on scanning was shown to be well-received and desired by both EM faculty and residents.
Topics: Humans; Curriculum; Anesthesia, Conduction; Nerve Block; Emergency Medicine; Ultrasonography, Interventional
PubMed: 38205993
DOI: 10.5811/westjem.59793