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The naming game: A discrepancy among the medical community
Author(s) -
Loukas Marios,
Aly Islam,
Tubbs R. Shane,
Anderson Robert H.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
clinical anatomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.667
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1098-2353
pISSN - 0897-3806
DOI - 10.1002/ca.22666
Subject(s) - medicine , confusion , terminology , nomenclature , anatomy , medical terminology , linguistics , taxonomy (biology) , psychoanalysis , psychology , philosophy , botany , nursing , biology
As anatomists we rely on the nomenclature of structures in order to describe them appropriately, particularly their orientation in respect to their surrounding. The terminology used by the anatomist to describe an organ, muscle, or nerve within the body is taught to medical students as law. Students learn to describe structures in the “anatomical position”, which has been accepted in the literature since the original Latin Nomina Anatomica . They therefore familiarize themselves with the use of terms such as superior, inferior, posterior and anterior to describe all anatomical structures, except in respect of the heart. The heart is still described in the original Valentine position. As anatomists we owe it to the medical and research community to correct the nomenclature to minimize confusion, and to describe the heart properly in respect to its surrounding structures. Clin. Anat. 29:285–289, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.