When the sixth week of his class on imaging the human body coincided with the night of the 2000 Grammy Awards, Washington University professor Albert Hammerman was inspired to kick out the jams.
"A few bars of a song loosely related to each subtopic were played prior to discussion. For example, Roy Orbison’s 'Crying' as an introduction to [imaging] the eye; Jan and Dean’s 'Dead Man’s Curve' as an introduction to facial trauma; Don McLean’s 'Starry Starry Night' as an introduction to the ear. It’s a song about Van Gogh, who cut off his ear -- get it?," Hammerman told AuntMinnie.com.
And the fun didn’t end there at the St. Louis-based university. Over the 15-week course, students learned about everything from the history of radiology to the pearls and pitfalls of imaging major vital organs and major organ systems. They played a variation of "Where’s Waldo?" in the GI tract, dissected Hollywood’s take on radiation, and took an insider's peek at the parts of famous folk, from Albert Einstein’s brain to baseball player Mark McGwire’s knee.
"The goal of the class was not only to teach standard anatomy, but to do so in a manner that was practical and meaningful as related to one’s own health. Unlike most standard anatomy courses, I believe that various cross-sectional imaging techniques make it easier to understand how one anatomic structure relates to and affects another, in both healthy and diseased states," Hammerman said.
Hammerman, a 20-year radiology veteran, intentionally targeted the class toward undergraduate science majors, as well as non-science majors. About a third of those students were pre-med majors, which was fine with Hammerman, who found that most lay people were hip to the various imaging modalities.
"The class was often in awe, as am I, of just how much can be visualized with today’s techniques -- especially those that allow 3-D, real-time, and virtual imaging," he said. "Several students who had reason to have a radiologic study during the course of the class were able to go over their films with their radiologist or referring physician. They were actually quite pleased with themselves as to their newfound level of understanding."
For Hammerman, teaching the course was a chance to revisit material that, he admitted, wasn’t all that thrilling the first time around. Hammerman graduated from Washington University in 1976 and did his residency at the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis. He was an attending radiologist at the hospital from 1980 to 1994, before moving on to serve as the chairman of the department of radiology at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Granite City, IL. He returned to St. Louis in 2000 as a faculty member at the university and currently is the director of Metro Imaging in St. Peters, MO.
"One reason that I’ve tried to make the course as practical and clinically relevant as possible is that I still remember how tedious it was just to memorize basic anatomy as an undergraduate. Only when I became a radiology resident and [saw] a real application for it, did I become interested about human anatomy," he said.
Imaging the Human Body will have its sophomore session in spring 2002. Hammerman said he is considering adding a "Survivor" or "Weakest Link" component to the class.
By Shalmali PalAuntMinnie.com staff writer
July 12, 2001
Click here to post your comments about this story. Please include the headline of the article in your message.
Copyright © 2001 AuntMinnie.com
