bdolcourt's Full Review: David Dean and Thomas E. Herbener - Cross Sectiona...
This book, released in January of 2000, is aimed primarily at first year medical students. It is exactly what the name implies: photos of human cadavers in cross-section. While it might sound somewhat gruesome, it is one of the most invaluable books I have found as I course through Gross Anatomy. Here, we call it Dean.
What is it?
The book is based on the “Visible Human” human project. Two people, a male and a female, were frozen in gelatin after their deaths. Thin slices, 1 mm thick for the male and .33 mm thick for the female, were removed and high-resolution digital photographs were taken of each layer. 1871 photos were taken for the male and 5000 were taken from the female (Dean IX). From these photos, the editors, David Dean and Thomas Herbener selected and labeled the “most relevant” and representative images of each section. The result is the clearest, easiest to use collection of cross-sectional images I have ever seen.
The book is divided into an introduction and 8 parts. The introduction helps orient the reader so that the cross-sections are easier to read. The rest of the book is broken up into the thorax, abdomen, pelvis and perineum, lower limb, back, upper limb, head, and neck. Each section contains between 5 and 16 plates (the larger the area the more plates).
Each plate consists of 5 parts on two pages. On the far right of each plate is a frontal schematic drawing that shows the level the cross-section. This is for orientation. On the top of the right hand side of the right hand page, is the high-resolution photo of the cross-section. The cross section is labeled with numbers and arrows pointing the parts. Below the picture is the key to the numbers. On the right side of the left-hand page, there is a black and white cartoon of the cross-section that more clearly differentiates the different parts of the cross-section. Finally, on the left side of the left page, there is a CT image corresponding to the cross-section. Most pages include a second radiographic image below the first. This image may be an MRI, a sonogram, a plainfilm, or an another CT scan. All supplementary images and cartoons are labeled according to the key.
The book's index is trivially simple to use. Any major structure can be easily located. Just to make it easier, structures are listed by name and by category. I find this index easier to use than most medical texts. By the same token, it also has fewer entries so the editors can index the book both ways.
Why is it so helpful?
This book gives another view into the world of gross anatomy. The goal of the course is for students to internalize a three dimensional view of the internal and external structures of the body. Seeing the structures from the top down helps reinforce the relationships that are seen from the front during the gross dissection. Combining the cross-sectional image, the cartoon, and the CT scan, all the important structures become very visible and are easy to differentiate.
The book also helps with radiology. The cross-sections exactly match the CT scans. By placing a CT image next to a similarly labeled cross-sectional image, a student has a much easier time learning how to interpret CT scans. The earlier a medstudent learns to read radiographs, the more successful he or she will be later on. Radiology really is a window into the soul.
Another reason this book is helpful is the quality of the images. These are the best cross-sectional images I have ever seen. They are labeled clearly and cleanly and they do not appear to have any artifacts from the cutting process. The labels are nicely done as well. Much of the minutia has been omitted and the most important structures are labeled. The lack of minutia doesn’t mean it isn’t rigorous…most images have between 30 and 40 different labels. What it means is that structures that are not apparent on CT images or structures that cannot be clearly differentiated are often omitted. There were times in gross lab when it would have been nice if the editors had labeled some of the smaller arteries, nerves and veins, however the images would probably become too busy and the strength of the book would have been lost.
Overall?
I love Dean. It has been the single most valuable tool I have found for learning how to read CT images (that has come in handy for the exams). It has also helped me better understand how different parts of the body relate to each other. Dean is not a substitute for an atlas by any stretch, but it is a very useful supplement to any medstudent’s library. I would highly recommend it (and it looks great on your coffee table).
Featuring full color cross-sectional images from The Visible Human Project, this new atlas is co-authored by a radiologist and includes orientation dr...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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