Category: Anatomy

Hey! I hadn’t taught for a while so it was good to start again, in hopefully a helpfully interactive way as we all looked at sliced and whole kidneys. In the session we talked about the cortex and the medulla, pointing out that while the cortex is outermost it also surrounds medullary (or renal) pyramids…

In last week’s anatomy session we started looking at the thorax. I spoke a little bit about the structure of the thoracic cage, specifically the ribs and the intercostal muscles. We noted that the diaphragm is responsible for increasing the volume within the thorax when its muscle fibres contract and the dome shape becomes flattened.…

I’m adding some links to the “muscles of the hip joint” entry below, so will stick them here too. How Stuff Works: Why do humans walk on two legs? – an article exploring some of the thoughts of why we walk on two legs. BBC Science & Nature: Mother of man – 3.2 million years…

In week 112 we talked about the movements of the hip joints and the muscles that cause and control those movements, trying to link them to our upright, bipedal locomotion. We started off by looking at the joint itself: the acetabulum (socket) of the pelvis and the head of the femur (ball). It’s helpful to…

This week I talked about the anatomy of the hand, and in particular the intrinsic muscles of the hand. The extrinsic muscles, the blood supply and the nervous innervation are largely covered elsewhere, and you need to link all these bits together. I talked about how the tendons of the flexor digitorum superficialis and flexor…

In the last anatomy session I talked about the anatomy of the breast (or mammary gland), changes through life, and the similarities between the male and female breast. I started off by talking about supernumerary nipples, using James Bond’s fake nipple as a bad example in the film, “The Man With The Golden Gun”. I…

In the last group of the anatomy teaching this morning I was struggling to think of the right name for the little fatty bits of peritoneum hanging off the large bowel. The textbook calls them omental appendices, which I know is correct but doesn’t have the right feel. A quick search of the web turns…

We started by looking at varices (dilated veins) in the oesophagus and around the umbilicus (caput medusae). We also mentioned hemorrhoids. Read more about these varices with these links: Patient UK – esophageal varices New England Journal of Medicine – caput medusae MedicineNet – hemorrhoids (piles) Our aim for the session was to use anatomy…