The Collective Skeleton

Please Note: This article is intended only for first year medical undergraduate students. Non-Medicos and others may not read this article.

Now that the story of the skeleton has come to end at the ‘The Blacklist’ (or is it starting?), Dr. Dev recalled the story of his own skeleton, or at least which was one-third his, when he was in his first year of MBBS in AIIMS, New Delhi.

In the first year, the MBBS students have to study the anatomy or structure of the body. An important part of this is study of the bones or osteology. Although in the anatomy practical the bones are shown and their important parts and landmarks are demonstrated in detail, it is very useful to have your personal specimen to study in your hostel room, especially before exams.

Dr. Dev realized this fact late. By the time he contacted his senior to borrow some bone specimens; most of his seniors had already given the bones to his classmates.

Also the specimen of large bones were readily available among students, the complete set of small bones such those of the hand and foot, the different vertebrae, ribs, etc. was not available among the students. Being small, these bones are easily misplaced and lost.

Stealing or ‘Borrowing’ the bones from the anatomy practical lab (dissection hall) was also not possible for him.

At that time an advertisement was placed at the notice board of the anatomy dissection hall, announcing sale by post of unarticulated, semi-articulated and fully articulated human skeleton, by a firm in Calcutta (presently Kolkata). Due to their cost it was not possible for Dr. Dev to buy the skeleton by himself. So Dev got together with two of his friends and they bought collectively a semi-articulated human skeleton.

The study on these actual human skeleton bones was one of the reasons Dr. Dev managed to get comparatively good marks in anatomy exam with relatively less study.

Buying collectively had an another good side-effect that these friends frequently studied the bones together, helping each other by taking mock viva on the bones, etc.

Tip: Having actual bones to study can give a boost to your learning of human anatomy.

Tip: Start borrowing the bones from senior early.

Tip: Buying a set of bones will help study comprehensively for your exams.

Tip: You can buy these bones in partnership with your friends if not affordable by you alone. 

Tip: Choose your partners wisely, so that you can study together without much friction related to the distribution of the bones. Due to the adjustable nature of his friends, there were never any bad feelings among Dev and his friends regarding sharing of the bones. It also helped that the three friends had a different preferred time of the study. One friend used to study early in the morning and day, another friend used to study in the day and evening and Dr. Dev himself used to study in the night.

(Based on true incident)

— ND
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DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. 

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to MCI and other Board’s norm. 

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