The heavy reliance on rote learning and the rigid memorisation of isolated structures present significant pedagogical drawbacks in anatomical education. In one institution where I formerly taught, the curriculum dictated that students dissect a specific topographical region, undergo assessment, and only upon passing, progress to the subsequent area. Consequently, mastering every structure within a rigidly prescribed boundary became the primary imperative. This limitation was starkly illustrated one day when a pair of students requested my assistance. They were dissecting the anterior aspect of the elbow—the cubital fossa—and were unable to identify a particular muscle. Rather than merely supplying the nomenclature, I proposed a more pedagogical, indirect approach. I suggested we first direct our attention proximally, towards the shoulder. Here, the students successfully identified the regional musculature, demonstrating commendable retention of material from their previous assessment. However, because they were operating within a compartmentalised paradigm, they perceived the cubital fossa as a distinct, novel domain where every structure had to be learned anew, despite a clear anatomical continuity staring them in the face. Pointing to a muscle at the shoulder, I asked them to name it. They correctly identified it as the biceps (more precisely, one of its two heads, though the distinction was immaterial for this exercise). I then encouraged them to trace its course distally down the arm. As they followed the biceps into the cubital fossa, they experienced a moment of realisation: the enigmatic muscle at the elbow was merely the distal continuation of the familiar structure at the shoulder. Their failure to make this connection stemmed largely from the department's failure to adopt a systemic, 'joined-up' approach to anatomy—a pedagogical deficiency regrettably reinforced by a dissection manual that championed rigid regionalism over anatomical continuity.
