Clinical anatomy : official journal of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists & the British Association of Clinical Anatomists
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Medicine is experiencing an escalating explosion of information. With more data available about more topics, the key questions are how to access and make sense of the medical information jungle. Skill in choosing and applying information is essential for both medical education and practice and will require new approaches to mastering data. ⋯ Finally, anatomy laboratories provide a context for learning other important aspects of medicine-group process, clinical problem solving, and a sensitivity to human mortality. Advocating for these unique features of our discipline in medical education is the task facing anatomists as we end this millennium. The challenges and opportunities for us have never been greater, if we don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
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This report is concerned with the place of the basic medical sciences, and particularly of anatomy, in the training of surgeons in the UK and Ireland. It reviews the present arrangements and their perceived shortcomings and outlines the proposals for a new 2-year program of Basic Surgical Training drawn up by the four Royal Colleges of Surgery in the UK and Ireland. ⋯ Examination by MCQs' alone is not enough: there is a need for practical assessment in the final assessment at the end of Basic Surgical Training, and this should involve anatomists as well as surgeons. Surgical skills are built upon anatomical knowledge, the study and examination of which must not be reduced to a level where it is detrimental to the care of patients.
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Following traumatic injury, rapid surgical access to the airway may be required, with surgical cricothyroidostomy the procedure of choice. Immediate complications of cricothyroidostomy include unsuccessful or incorrect site of tube placement and hemorrhage. Subglottic stenosis is the most common late complication. ⋯ In 54% of specimens, the superior thyroid artery coursed anterior to the sternothyroid muscle and then the lateral edge of the cricothyroid membrane. The membrane was also crossed by venous tributaries to the superior and inferior thyroid veins. To lessen the possibility of complications following cricothyroidostomy, a knowledge of the dimensions, relations, and vasculature of the cricothyroid membrane is of inestimable value.
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Human anatomy forms the foundation for clinical medicine; thus its place in the medical school curriculum deserves careful attention. In an attempt to provide guidance to decision-makers involved in clinical anatomy curriculum development at the medical school level, the Educational Affairs Committee of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists (AACA) developed this document, which defines the contours of a gross anatomy curriculum leading to the M. ⋯ The main body of the document sets forth the anatomical concepts as well as the subject matter a student should master prior to graduation from medical school. The AACA seeks to ensure that all medical students receive thorough training in clinical anatomy and that each student, regardless of the institution attended, will be exposed to a curriculum that will provide a fundamental level of competence required for the practice of medicine.