Contrast in usage of FCAT‐approved anatomical terminology between members of two anatomy associations in North America

Abstract

Almost 12 years since the publishing of Terminologia Anatomica (TA) by the Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology (FCAT), there has yet to be a unified adoption of FCAT-recommended anatomical terms by North American anatomists. A survey was sent to members of the Human Anatomy & Physiology Society (HAPS) to compare the frequency of FCAT term usage with a previous study involving the American Association of Anatomists (AAA). The HAPS differed from AAA in being composed mostly of biologists (56.5%) who teach anatomy with only 18.3% of respondents having terminal degrees in anatomy. The survey included the same 25 sets of synonymic names for selected gross anatomical structures or related terms used for the AAA survey. Overall results indicate that the FCAT preferred term had the highest frequency of usage in only 40.0% of the survey questions, demonstrating 4% lower compliance than AAA respondents. Compliance with FCAT preferred terms ranged from 92.2% to 1.7% usage. When compared with AAA anatomists, there were reversals in predominant usage between FCAT and non-FCAT terms for six sets of anatomical structures: HAPS respondents predominantly used non-FCAT terms for adrenal gland (88.7%), antecubital fossa (57.4%), patellar tendon (65.2%), ligamentum capitis femoris (36.5%), while preferring the FCAT anterior circumflex humeral artery (45.2%) and anterior/posterior preferred over ventral/dorsal (41.7%). Almost 54% of HAPS anatomists were not familiar with the FCAT, nearly 21% higher than the AAA.

Familiarity with Latin and Greek anatomical terms and course performance in undergraduates

“…In particular, Moore (1988) noted that while most anatomists used terms designated by the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists in the Basle Nomina Anatomica (IANC, 1989), replaced by the Terminologia Anatomica since 1998 (FCAT, 1998); though Martin and colleagues (2009) report that the use of Terminologia Anatomica among anatomists in North America is quite variable. Practicing clinicians and physicians often have their own anatomical vocabulary derived from their personal clinic-based learning experiences (Martin et al, 2009(Martin et al, , 2010.…”

Análisis del Conocimiento de la Terminología Anatómica Internacional (TAI) por el Cirujano General

“…Basado en ésta Terminología Internacional en latín, cada idioma puede formular su propia nomenclatura. Si bien se desaconseja el uso de epónimos, existe un apéndice con los más frecuentes (Acuña et al;Algieri et al, 2010aAlgieri et al, , 2010bAlgieri et al, , 2011aAlgieri et al, , 2011bÁlvarez & Campohermoso;Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology, 1998;ManzanaresCéspedes, 2010;Martin et al, 2009Martin et al, , 2010Matusz, 2010;Vogl, 2009;Whitemore, 2009). A partir del 2001 la Sociedad Anatómica Española tradujo esta Terminología Anató-mica Internacional al idioma español y se encuentra publicado por Ed.…”

Misleading Latin/English equivalents for some liver terms in Terminologia Anatomica

“…I read with great interest your editorial titled ''Moving forward with Terminologia Anatomica'' (Pawlina and Drake, 2009) and several other articles recently published in Anatomical Sciences Education that have focused on the use of anatomical terminology (Martin at al., 2009(Martin at al., , 2010Whitmore, 2009). …”