Help me study human anatomy!

February 6, 2008 6:17 PM

Your favorite human anatomy study resources? I'm looking for the best online quizzes, websites, and flashcards, as well as the best paper flashcards. More detailed is favored over less detailed--though right now they're only for my EMT-B certification, eventually I'd like them to carry me all the way to my EMT-P (Paramedic).

For example, I've been looking at the Netter's Anatomy Flashcards. Has anyone had any luck with these?

posted by schroedinger to education (10 comments total)

The Visible Body and Human Anatomy Online are some websites.
posted by scubbadubba at 7:45 PM on February 6, 2008

My cousin, who is a physical therapist, always recommends the Anatomy Coloring Book.
posted by BoscosMom at 7:47 PM on February 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This might not be what you want, exactly, but I set up this web page (of ppt/pdf slides) of human osteology, for a colleague. It's pretty comprehensive!
posted by Rumple at 7:57 PM on February 6, 2008

My anatomy teacher always recommends getbodysmart.com
posted by mabelcolby at 7:59 PM on February 6, 2008

heart anatomy


general anatomy

I also used flashcards and and took photos of the body parts that were labeled in lab. I was not allowed to photograph the cadavers though and there are a lot of muscles to learn. Memorizing insertion points helped a lot. Oh and I had a decent color atlas of the human body to help reference to the flashcards.
posted by yodelingisfun at 8:04 PM on February 6, 2008

Do you work around a computer/laptop a lot?

Get a program that will automatically change your desktop background (there are commercial ones for OSX, I'd google any "free" or shareware version for the PC to check them out for spy/malware) at a preset number of minutes.

Download or scan in annoted photos/diagrams. For my neuroanatomy class, such images were available in high resolution from anatomy journals or from course material created by the prof (or more likely, one of their grad students) based on images which were stained such that the different regions were obvious. I'd add my own annotations, with an image editor, to these.
posted by porpoise at 8:21 PM on February 6, 2008

Acland's Video Atlas of Human Anatomy literally carried me through my anatomy course this year in med school. Granted, my school had it available for free online, so I didn't have to buy the whole $185 set, but it was just an amazing resource. Dr. Acland shows you dissections of real bodies that are not filled with preservative, so they actually look like the real thing.

The Netter's cards are pretty good, but they can be annoying as they are really inefficient in space - like an entire arm musculature will be shown on the card, but only 1 or 2 muscles will be asked for. Sure, they get to most of the important stuff eventually with all the cards, but it takes much more cards than is necessary, and those cards can be a bit of a pain in the neck to carry around.
posted by i less than three nsima at 9:03 PM on February 6, 2008

Netter is good. He is basically THE anatomist for medical students to study by. His cards are just like his atlas (if you can get a hold on one of his atlases, that'd be all you need). They are probably too detailed for what you need though. This from experience (2nd year med student).
posted by uncballzer at 9:22 PM on February 6, 2008

My 2 cents: get the Netter atlas and one or more of the anatomy coloring books (there are seveal in the series - body, nervous system, etc).

Netter's is an amazing atlas (superior to Grant's IMO, and I am not even mentioning layman guides like Gray's). It is highly organized and thorough. If you are already getting your anatomy material from a text book, the difference between textbook drawings and Netter illustrations will probably be night and day. The attention to detail is incredible, and there are many thousands of interconnections between drawings (just as there are within the human body) that do not become apparent until after many hours of studying. It's very rewarding.

That said, there is a distinct advantage to the coloring book. Reading Netter is like listening to a very knowledgeable, methodical, old-school professor. The anatomy books, aside from giving you a chance to memorize structures visually (which is a huge plus to some people like me) are also packed full of information that is... slightly less formal than what you'd get from a clinical anatomy textbook or an atlas. To give these books a personality, they are like a seasoned but friendly senior TA for a course, who will tell you what's important, and maybe teach you a dirty mnemonic on the side to memorize names and functions of the twelve cranial nerves*. Same information, but different approaches to dissemination - in my medical education days I found the combination unbeatable.

[*] Here is the mnemonic. To memorize the function of the twelve cranial nerves in normal order of numbering, remember the below sentence and keep in mind that S=sensory, M=motor and B=both:
Some Say Marry Money But My Buddies Say Big breasts Matter More

There is also a mnemonic to help memorize the names of these nerves in same order, but it is perhaps a bit dirtier... you will have no problems finding it on the internets if so inclined.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 10:14 PM on February 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Would you be interested in videos? Also, I always tell people the Gospen of Rohen('s Color Atlas of Anatomy) as a guide; it's a picture tour through a well-done dissection. I don't know what EMT's have to know vs what MDs do. For example, med students can start out with a mnemonic on the cranial nerves, but ultimately they have to know how to test them all or to say which nerve/root/nucleus is damaged by symptoms alone.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 5:48 AM on February 7, 2008