October 22 thru 24

Okay, this week we've begun putting the memorization and rote-work involved with Anatomy on the backburner a bit.  Knowing the bones and all their processes is certainly important, but it's important not to lose site of the big picture:  which is the real world and how knowing anatomy could be really important to getting through everyday situations.

Our structure of the week is a case in point.  Many of you thought the "anatomical snuff box" was something I made up, but it's not.  In fact, if you read up on this little area of the human body, you'll find that tenderness in this area following a fall of some kind might mean that you've fractured a carpal.  You should also notice that this structure of the week is really just an area, but it's interesting in that it's bound by two tendons and that to understand what it is you have to know the joints that are nearby and that it can only truly be located by moving your thumb into a particular position...explain that position in the comments below and you'll find yourself in extra credit territory.

We also engaged in reading "Pitched from the Vertical" a dramatic story about falling written by Peter Stark, in his book Last Breath.  Since we've all fallen at times, this is a story we can all relate to.  Many of us are also afraid of heights, so that's another point we can identify with...think about it, are you really afraid of the height? or just the sudden stop after falling that distance?

Today, Wednesday, we traced your feet and reviewed the anatomy of the foot from the perspective of our footprint.  Which tarsals really bear our weight?  Reply again, and there's some more extra credit.  Also, today we looked specifically at your text from 192 to 194 and reviewed the different categories and classification schemes for joints in your body.  Now, obviously the content (diarthrosis, synovial, etc) was important, but as important was the way we looked at these three pages.  We took pains to organize the text into a small concept map and drew connections between the various types of joints.  So the point of the work was to get familiar with the vocabulary as well as with how the narrative of your text could be read and then put into a format that could be usable for you.  Try this on any two to three pages of text from Chapter 5 and show me what you come up with...include at least 7 to 8 important terms and make sure that you write some connections and I'll throw in a free quiz for work like that.  Thanks for reading...