The subjects

• The Department of Anatomy offers 32 mandatory and elective courses in three languages (Hungarian, English and German) and some facultative courses. These courses include Gross Anatomy, Neuroanatomy, Histology and Embryology. In the same time, the students are supposed to become familiar with about half of the 12 000 medical terms mostly of Latin-Greek origin.
• These courses are taught in several combinations worldwide. In some Universities, including the other Hungarian Medical Schools, these courses of the curriculum are combined into one single subject, "the Anatomy". The tremendous amount of information Anatomy includes, makes this subject the nightmare of the medical students. In 2004, we started teaching "Anatomy" as separate subjects. Although these subjects are taught by the same department, the courses are treated separately likewise their exams. The anatomy and the histology teachers may be the same for a student-group and there are also several overlaps between the courses. The separate exams make life of the students easier eliminating the difficult combined exam. Even with this separation, each of the three sunjects belong to the most difficult ones of the medical curriculum.
• The purpose of teaching Anatomy, Histology, and Embryology is to let the medical students to learn all the knowledge of the structure of human body at a level necessary for every medical doctor. The source of this knowledge is the human body itself. The dissecting room practices, devoted to dissect and study of human bodies, offer the most authentic and long-lasting knowledge. Medical doctors are privileged members of the society. These privileges, however, also mean exceptional responsibility. One of these privileges is that only medical doctors, and medical students, devoted to studying medical sciences, have the right to dissect human bodies. Dissection of human cadavers for doctors is also mandated by general rules. Any available, legal tool can be useful for understanding the structure of the human body, but nothing can replace dissection of cadavers. There are only the dissecting room practices that ensure the possibility of three-dimensional studying of the human body, the manual skills for the future medical interventions, the picturesque, reproducible, valuable anatomical knowledge.

Learning

• Similar to other subjects of medical curriculum, studying of Anatomy is accomplished out in two interwined forms:
  • contact hours (lectures and practices), where expert, trained teachers help studying of the students with interpreting the subject and offering specimens
  • individual learning e.g. at home, in dormitories, and libraries using textbooks; during facultative practices in the dissecting rooms; utilizing diapositives and histology slides provided by the Anatomy Department; or consulting these web-pages
• Studies in the courses offered by the Department, in particular Gross Anatomy, are very time-consuming, they need more intensive individual preparation. Unfortunately, some of the students recognize this fact only during the exam.
• The presence of the students on the dissecting room and histology practices is continuously and strictly registered. The number of acceptable absences is set by the regulation of the Medical School; over a certain number of absences (for any reason), the grade-book of the students is not signed, i.e. the course (the semester) cannot be accepted, and, consequently, the student is not allowed to take exam.
• As it has been mentioned above, studies in Anatomy is rendered particularly difficult by the fact that the students are supposed to learn the great majority of the medical terms within this subject. Learning these terms is made significantly easier by a basic knowledge of Latin language. This is why a minimal knowledge of Latin language is essential for a successful anatomical study.
• To understand the meanings of medical terms, thus studying Anatomy easier, you are suggested to consult separate books (medical dictionaries). Here we give a list of the most important Latin words, and this list can be downloaded also in PDF format.

Dissecting practices

• The students should enter the dissecting rooms before the beginning of the practice, before the teacher arrives. The earliest time the students may enter the already prepared dissecting room is 10 minutes before the beginning of the practice. The period till the practice begins is a good opportunity for the students to study the preparations.
• It is PROHIBITED
  • to be the dissecting rooms in a day wear. The students must enter in a white, clean, buttoned-up lab-coat, which completely covers, and thus protects their cloth. The Department can`t loan lab coats, scalpel or forceps.
  • to bring coats, any other pieces of dress, bags or other personal belongings into the dissecting rooms or store them in the hallways of the Department. The students should use their lockers provided by the Faculty for storing these items. The Department can not take responsibility for the belongings left in the hallways during the practices.
  • to eat, drink, smoke or to chew gum in any teaching facilities.
  • to attend practices under the influence of any medicine or drug that reduces or influences somatic and/or mental capabilities.
  • to take pictures or make recording recordings (audio or video) with any kind of devices without the specific permission of your practice leader.
  • to let in any unauthorised person into the dissecting rooms without the permission of the Head of the Department
• The students are permitted to stay in the dissecting rooms only during the regular practices in the presence of a teacher. Exceptions:
  • officially announced free practices preceding the semester exams,
  • within 10 minutes before the regular practices,
  • with special permission of the Head of the Department for preparing teaching materials (senior students only, first of all members of the Scientific Student Body working in the Anatomy Department).
• Instruments needed for working in the disecting rooms:
  
  
  • scalpel (with disposable blades),
  • anatomical forceps (serrated - no hooked, surgical ones!),
  • a small container for storing them,
  • a notepad of small size and a pen - to take notes,
  • a few anatomy atlases for a group,
  • gloves
    
• Only instruments and objects that needed for your studies in the dissecting room and listed in the previous paragraph can be taken into the dissecting room. No personal belongings, food, drink are allowed to bring into the dissecting rooms.
• To honor human dignity, we demand proper respect towards the remains of our fellow men, under any circumstances. Therefore, loudness, tasteless jokes, or any other sort of an improper, irresponsible behaviour is strictly prohibited in the dissecting rooms.
• The students are supposed to make all efforts to save the tidyness, cleanness, the conditions of the instruments and fixtures in the dissecting rooms. The wet and dry specimens should be treated separately. Parts of human origin can only be kept on appropriate trays; waste of human origin should be collected separately in the provided collecting bowls. In case the dissecting table or the floor becomes contaminated, they immediately should be cleaned (prevention of accidents doe to slipperiness!).
• To prevent any injury, sharp instruments should be used carefully, and should be kept in a hard case when not in use. Scalpels are not to be kept in pockets without a hard case, since it is extremely dangerous not only for the person, but for the class-mates.
• Do not leave any tool in the cadaver (hooks!)
• Used disposable scalper blades should be collected separately in the container provided by the Department for that purpose. You MUST NOT put them into the bowls serving to collect human waste.
• After finishing the dissection (at the end of the practices), the provided sheet should be wetted (with tap water), and the cadaver should be covered with it. This saves the environment from the evaporating, irritating chemicals, and also the cadaver from drying out.
• Preparations. models, as well as X-ray and NMR pictures, provided for your study, can not be moved between dissecting rooms without the previous consent of the teacher. These materials should be treated and used with great care.
• It is STRICTLY PROHIBITED to take away any specimen or teaching material from the premises of the Department. Strict measures, disciplinary punishment will be initiated in any cases against those, who break this rule, or try to initiate with the staff-members to provide them any human material for private purposes. The students are obliged to report, if they become aware of such an activity, otherwise he/she is considered to be an accomplice in the crime.

Histology practices

• In contrary to the dissecting rooms, the histology rooms can only be entered together with the teacher. Wearing lab-coats is not mandatory in these rooms. Only histology practical, and lecture notes, as well as the necessary writing and drawing tools are allowed to bring to the rooms, all other personal belongings should be stored in the students' lockers. Foods and drinks should not be brought to the histology rooms.
• The students are required to make drawings of the slides they study during the practices. The purpose of preparing such drawings is not to improve the artistic ability of the students or to make the students's own histology atlas. It is an important tool of effective learning of histology. Although the quality of these drawings seemingly does not reach the quality of a microphotograph, the practical value of the drawings is high. The students, to prepare a good drawing, have to find the most characteristic parts of the sections, and utilizing them, they construct a textbook type picture, which may contain such combinations, which do not actually exist in the slide in that form, but help understanding the structure. The teachers, looking at the drawings of the students, can judge the level of students' preparation for the practice (whether the students know where to find what, what to see), independent of the students' drawing ability.
• To make the drawings colored pencils (red and blue pencils are most frequently used)and the official histology workbook of the department are needed . For practical reasons, only pencils, which erasable, are suggested to use.

• Moving the microscope on the table with the light on results in small "jumpings", which may damage of the light bulb. Students should set up the their working environment (including the position of the microscope) at the beginning of the practice, thus avoiding any further move of the microscope. The microscopes, with their lights on, should not be moved even for convenience of the teachers/examinors.
• The iris diaphragm should be completely open (with a few exceptions), and the amount of light set to a comfortable level. Doing so not only improves the quality of the viewed pictures but prolongs the life of the light bulb.
• The binocular tube (holding the eye-pieces) can be rotated around the longitudinal axis. We ask the students not to take advantage of this capability, since the screw fixing the tube is not designed for intensive usage. Please accept that the ocular should face straight backward all the time.
• The objectives of the microscope are "synchronized". This means that if once the slide is in focus with the smallest power, switching to higher magnification, minimal, if any, focusing is necessary. Consequently, lifting the objectives after slide changes is unnecessary; it overloads the mechanical system of the microscope and increases the probability of breaking the slide. Turn the objective holder to the smallest magnification before removing the slides. If turning the macrometer (coarse focusing knob) is unavoidable, please use the knobs on both sides (except the newest microscopes).
• The eye-pieces (oculars) get easily dirty because of the intensive usage (mascara...). Students may clean them with paper tissue or soft cotton (T-shirt). Microscopic slides can be treated similarly (the slides are cleaned before they get into use at the beginning of the week; however after some practices they may become dirty).
• Before the slide is placed into the microscope it should be checked that the cover-glass is facing up. This should become automatic! If a slide cannot be focus with high power, then it is probable, that the covers glass is facing down.
• If a microscope becomes unusable for any reason during the practice, the student has to move to other microscope. The microscopes must not be moved, no parts of the microscopes allowed to exchange. Before the student moves to a new place this should be approved by the teacher.
• Please do not try to repair the microscope. In case of any problem, please call your teacher.
• The projector and the video-microscope should only be used by the teachers.
• Each microscope has two eye-pieces (oculars) and a pointer (built into one of the oculars, and used for pointing objects in the slides), three objectives (fixed into the objective-holder which can be rotated), a blue filter and a condenser. Each student has to check the presence of these parts on the microscope at the very beginning of each practice. In case the student finds any changes, any abnormality or missing parts of the microscope he/she should report the fact to the teacher immediately to avoid being blamed unnecessarily. Otherwise, if the problem is reported at the beginning of the pracice, the student, who failed to report, will be blamed.
• The microscopes are very sensitive and expensive instruments. Consider please, that we offer the use of the microscopes free of charge (in some universities the students are supposed to buy and bring their own microscopes). It is everyone's principal duty to save the microscopes and to prevent their abuse. It is unethical to tolerate from "loyalty" when someone impairs a microscope. If a damage or loss is discovered and no one else take the responsibility, we have to charge the last user of the microcope for it. Some examples of prices: blue filter 4.000 Ft, an objective 15.000-50.000 Ft - and they cannot be used for anything else.
• We strongly ask every student to treat the microscopic slides with great care. It is very difficult to get fresh, good quality human specimens and to prepare them properly. For breaking a slide, you will be charged 1.000-2.000 Ft, depending on how serious is the damage.