Anatomy

Had an interesting discussion with Vivian on the anatomy of the autonomic nervous supply to the rectum. As usual, I ended up with the question, "How did you pass the FRCS exit examination ?"

"That's not a problem. I can always check the textbook whenever I am not sure." She is quite true. In fact it is safe practice to look up the reference rather than rely on our rusty memory, and to many of us (non-surgeons), a large body of knowledge on anatomy seems rather useless - except when I argue with my surgeon wife ! (By the way, Vivian knows very well that one of my wildest dreams is to be invited as the external examiner of surgery, be it final MB or FRCS.)

The question therefore becomes why do we teach so much anatomy in pre-clinical years ? The "problem" was in fact well taken by our educationalists and teaching on anatomy has been very much trim down - to allow time for important topics. Great.

Nonetheless, we apply anatomy knowledge every now and then in our learning and practising of clinical medicine, and it is often difficult to predict which bit of the knowledge becomes useful in the future. (Who can predict one has a surgeon wife ?) Medical school should not only teach bare bone basic knowledge, it should give some exposure to the breadth and depth of all field of medicine. To teach less anatomy is, seriously, an unwilling compromise after consideration on its opportunistic cost.