I am taking a gross anatomy class in the fall. Does anyone know of any good study guides, picture books, etc. I can buy?
You will probably want an atlas. Grea’s and Netter’s are the two most popular. Gray’s seems to be the most popular with instructors, Netter’s with students. The drawings in Netter’s are better, but the explanations in Gray’s is nice. There is also a set of Netter’s flashcards which are nice for certain areas of the body.
New atlases can be kind of expensive, so you may want to consider waiting until the course starts and see what texts are recommended in the syllabus.
will your class involve cadaveric Dissection? If so you will need something like Grants Dissector. You will need a copy, perhaps one to share with others in your dissection group, as it will get sort of stinky and you will want to discard it at the end of the class.
Altases are of two basic types: Photographic, and pictographic. Netters is a classic pictographic… they have the advantage of showing generallized anatomy… a composite if you will generated out of the artist/authors experience and examination of many cadavers. Grays is another classic of this type.
Photographic atlases use photos of actual cadavers to illustrate the anatomy. They do show you the anatomy as you will actually see it, but are specific to the cadaver which was used as the model. Particularly if you are doing dissection, you may want one of each.
probably the most common photographic atlas is Rohen’s
Our school had copies of Grant’s in the lab that you could get nasty and then I had a copy of Netter’s that I used to study from. I still grab my Netter’s every now and then to look things up. Don’t take your atlas into the lab (or any book you value for that matter) because it will get messed up.
Enjoy the class. I loved anatomy and dissecting.
At our school, you’re assigned a “big sib” who often has an old atlas to give you to use in the lab. We call them dirty Netters. Previous editions are fine for this purpose. Apparently dirty Netters are at a premium this year; several first years have told me they can’t get their hands on one.