Hello beautiful people! If you are a medical student and have been looking for a good app to learn anatomy, look no further. I will preface this post with my key message, before jumping into a lengthy explanation as to why this app has really helped me, especially when I was trying to learn MSK anatomy without gorging my eyes out.
I highly recommend this app called "Complete Anatomy". Hands down the best anatomy app I have ever come across.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let me dive into how I came across this app, how I really started to enjoy anatomy because of it, and why it is the best alternative to real-life cadaveric specimens.
Due to the pandemic, anatomy teaching had been moved online. This was tragic because second and third year students like myself have been accustomed to learning anatomy in the labs. We learned by rotating around the various metallic tables-on-wheels with cadaveric pro-sections displayed on top of them. There would be propped-up boards with relevant information pinned on them for our reference, and we would cross-check our answers in the anatomy workbooks with the anatomy lecturers, PALS tutors and basically anyone who looked like they knew their stuff.
Well, in third year, I was left with my Moore's textbook and a handful of websites like Teach Me Anatomy (which has concise and well laid-out information) and a few apps my uni subscribed to, such as Acland's Anatomy (This app is good for recap, but not really useful when starting out). There was also this other app, which for the life of me I cannot remember at this moment. This just shows you how often I used it. Wait, let me have a quick search.
Ah, yes. Anatomy TV.
This bloody app. Pardon my language, but honestly, this app is not worth the effort. It crashed far too often and tended to log out of my student account every 30 minutes or so. Now, all this I could overlook if it was actually useful. However, I found it extremely difficult to rotate the virtual body parts and look at them from different angles so as to orientate myself. It was also really confusing when I was trying to increase and decrease the layers to include or exclude other anatomical parts I was interested in. All in all, I spent more time grumbling about the tackiness of the app under my breath than actually getting any learning done.
I am lowkey tempted to petition for Aberdeen to stop subscribing to this app and to subscribe to Complete Anatomy instead.
Anyway, after a week of trying to study MSK anatomy online, I was desperate enough that I started asking around to find out where I could buy a life-sized skeleton, like the ones in the anatomy lab.
I was one hundred percent serious about it. I went on Taobao, Amazon, Shopee- you name it, you have it. Whilst everyone I spoke to was amused that I was resorting to such measures, I was genuinely fed up with learning about the muscles of the upper limb through pictures on a book. I needed help.
Since the days of Burke and Hare are long gone, the skeleton hunt was unsuccessful.
In the meantime, I was also experimenting with different anatomy apps on the app store. Some of them were free, but I did not find them user friendly, and none of them really appealed to me. Of course, I could have put myself out of my misery and just googled "Best Anatomy Apps for Medical Students", and I would have probably gotten what I needed faster. I do not know why I had this mental block then. I think I was just overwhelmed and frustrated as I never had to use apps to supplement my anatomy learning before.
Then my cousin, who is a medical student herself studying in Australia, recommended Complete Anatomy to me. This app gives you a free 3-day trial to try out their features. I made an account and watched as my little mind got blown to smithereens.
Okay, let me tell you five things I like about this app. If you are already convinced and are going to try it out anyway, I would recommend you download the app and have a look at it first before continuing to read this post, because what I am about to say would probably make more sense.
1. I can "manhandle" the virtual specimens exactly how I want to
This app allows me to rotate, zoom in/out, position, isolate and hide each body part, thus allowing me to orientate it and clearly visualise how it would look in real life. In short, I get the closest 3D experience to what I would get in the labs. When I zoom in, the picture quality is not compromised and still shows all the necessary detail.
2. I can focus on one system at a time
Even during real life teaching, the anatomy assistants would have prepared the specimen by colouring certain body parts so as to help point out the relevant things we need to know for that body system. Otherwise, it would be like trying to locate a needle in the haystack. In this app, you have the option of adding detail pertaining to a specific system. For example, since I was studying MSK at the time, I would click on the "Muscular" button repeatedly, adding a layer of muscles to the skeleton each time, from superficial to deep. Hence, there was not the distraction of other stuff like nerves, vessels, etc.
3. Lots of fun things to play with
Anatomy learning actually became a lot more fun with this app. It was like I had been wandering about without hands, and this app became the extension of my limbs. Whatever I needed, the app had it. In particular, when I was studying the different bones in MSK, like the humerus, there were app features like "surface landmarks" and "bony features" to help me understand the clinical relevance of each bone. When I was trying to understand the many movements of each muscle, there was a handy "motion" button that would animate the muscle to make that movement. This was really useful especially when I could not wrap my head around more complicated movements like downward rotation of the scapula.
4. Lots of other useful resources on the same app
I also discovered a resource bank filled with videos which go over specific anatomical topics. It is like that of Acland's, but with a lot more variety and animation. There are also quizes to test yourself, which is always good for active recall, a study technique I talked about in another post. If you are struggling with radiology, like I always do (I ruled out radiology as a career for me in first year), there is a wealth of labelled radiological images for you to test yourself with.
5. This app hardly crashes, and it does not log out after thirty minutes
This is an obvious snub at Anatomy TV, which is on my list of "Worst Apps for Medical Students". Having said so, this app does consume battery power like no tomorrow, and my 2015 macbook pro often overheated and had its fans whirring whilst using this app for extended periods of time. It also takes up a reasonable amount of storage space (around 500mb I think?), which is a lot in my opinion. (Tech junkies don't @ me)
However, all of these are non-starters. You should definitely get this app to supplement your anatomy learning. I can go on and on for hours about why you should, but your time is better spent on actually giving it a try. After the free trial, you do have to pay a yearly subscription fee, which is around $35 pa for students, and $99 for professionals. When I was still at the infancy stage of trying out its features, what I did, and I expect many students will resonate with this, was to create a new account every time the 3-day trial was up. Yes, yes. What a scumbag move. Well, I did end up paying the $35 because this app is just too good.
I have always enjoyed anatomy since first year, but this app made me love anatomy even more. My only regret is not discovering this app sooner. It really would have saved me hours and hours of scouring the internet for bits and pieces of information I needed to fill out my workbook. I am not privy to how other people study anatomy, so I might just be the last person to jump onto this bandwagon. Hey ho- better late than never.
Anyway, go check out that app and let me know what your thoughts are in the comments!
Cheers,
Jie Fei