You will see that we discuss the anatomy of the sexual organs in a binary manner, following a definition of ‘anatomical sex’ (the physical structure including chromosomes, genes and their products) as the most frequent anatomical variants, male and female. We are aware that there are anatomical variants that do not correspond to either the male or female anatomical variants of sex.
With this nomenclature we explicitly acknowledge the differentiation between the terms sex and gender. The latter is a psychological, social and cultural construct, including self-identification; this is independent of physical structure, chromosomes, or genes.
Develop a personal study strategy for preparing ahead of each lab session.
If you don’t have some idea of what structures look like and where they are before coming to lab, you’ll have a hard time seeing them.
The goal of lab prep is to know which structures will be revealed, what they look like, and where they are relative to other structures.
The more you prepare before lab, the less time you will have to spend studying the material for exams.
Skim the lab guide to get an overall sense of where the dissection is going.
Study the lab guide more carefully. Click on the bold terms to learn more about them in the Glossary (you are not responsible for the details in the glossary for exams, but you are responsible for being able to identify items in the Structures Revealed lists).
Look up the some of the bold terms in one or more of the following (particularly if you don’t have a good sense of what the structure looks like and where it is located from the lab guide alone):
Visible Body Atlas (or other 3D) app
2D Anatomical atlas (Netter, Rowan, etc.)
Wikipedia
Review the list of structures revealed at the end of the lab guide. Are any of them entirely unfamiliar to you? If so, go back to steps 2 and 3.
Watch the dissection video, if there is a video for the specific lab.
Take the practice quiz on Canvas to self-assess your preparation. All quizzes are open book.
a. = artery, aa. = arteries
v. = vein, vv. = veins
n. = nerve, nn. = nerves