title: Should we teach Abernethy and Zuckerkandl?
abstract: In this study, the author analyzed the relevance of anatomical eponyms for medical education by researching 453 anatomical eponyms and their corresponding English or Latin terms in the Medline database. The number of hits in the database ranged from 0 to 34,490 per eponym (median 11). Almost a quarter (110) of the eponyms did not appear at all. Only 11% of those articles that use anatomical eponyms in their title or abstract added a descriptive English or Latin term. In conclusion, familiarity with many of these eponyms is superfluous for medical students, as they are not in common use by the medical community. However, a number of eponyms must be actively retained by students to understand clinicians and efficiently research medical literature.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cell Biology and Neurobiology, Center for Anatomy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. andreas.winkelmann@charite.de
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Winkelmann
mesh_terms: D000715:Anatomy / Q000193:education*; D015706:Bibliometrics; D004850:Eponyms; D006801:Humans; D016239:MEDLINE; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data