Dooley Noted: 9/29/2016
Formal anatomy instruction might be dying.
Curricula are being cut all over the world in the instruction of anatomy to medical doctoral candidates.
I’m part of some of these curricula.
I’m a hard worker, no doubt.
I’m not obsessed with work.
But I took every anatomy job handed to me for one big reason:
I knew anatomy dissection instruction was a fading pulse.
And I knew the only way for me to learn anatomy fully – and quickly – was to get my hands on it.
I watch as students use gorgeous, three-dimensional applications to learn structures – just to look at me dumbfounded when I ask them to find it on the body or on plastinates.
Apps are great – but they are meant to teach us how to APPLY, right?
They are absolutely falling short as a solo learning method.
As I grip on to what may be my last decade of teaching human dissection, I look for new ways to keep the anatomy alive.
And the best way I’ve found to keep it breathing is to talk about it.
We started a course called ID, to help teach functional anatomy to practitioners of all disciplines.
We took the fear out of learning anatomy with regular Anatomy Angels, which help give us real world applications for anatomy.
We promote incredible seminar series like NKT, DNS, PRI, and AiM, that put the anatomy into your body so you can feel things move as a unit.
And we start having the hard talks, losing our hubris and exposing our weaknesses in anatomic instruction.
To understand the macro, you must study the micro.
And to fully integrate the micro, you must learn to watch and feel the macro.
At the foundation of all of this is anatomy instruction.
How do you study anatomy?
Through apps? Great.
Through dissection? Fantastic.
Through atlases and models? Word.
Through coloring books? Fun.
Through human movement? Excellent.
Through seminars and podcasts? Informative.
Through talking it out? Wonderful.
Do everything that resonates.
If you can’t do one part, do whatever you can. Do multiple things to learn from every cerebral direction.
Pick one muscle a day, and learn its every detail. Apply those details all day.
Pick one arterial feed every month.
Know everywhere that artery goes.
See it on a body, on an app, and in an atlas.
Talk about it to anyone who will listen.
Before you know it, you’ve learned it all.
You’ll start to make connections the more your mind goes to anatomy.
Anatomy was my weakest board score.
So, I turned it into my job. Now, I literally get paid to learn every day of my life.
I hope you turn your anatomy weaknesses Into strengths.
If your anatomy studies stopped in school, you have a lot more studying to do.
I suggest you get to work, because anatomy still lives.
And it still matters.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
