ANATOMY PROFESSOR'S BOOK BECOMES WORLD'S MOST POPULAR "BRAIN ATLAS"

Dr. Duane Haines, professor and chair of anatomy, recently celebrated the seventh edition of his book “Neuroanatomy, an Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems.” The latest edition represents its 25th year (1983-2008) in production.

The book, which has been translated into eight languages, has become the most widely used of its type in the United States, an incredible accomplishment considering some publishers initially refused to give it a second look. Haines said at the time he wrote his book there was another neurobiology book on the market, and some publishers didn’t see the need for a new one.

Haines’ book has surpassed its competition in terms of usage for medical training.

“It’s used in residency programs, neurology and neurosurgery. It’s extensively used in physical therapy programs. It is the most clinically applicable neuroanatomy atlas in this country,” Haines said. “It probably has about 250 MRIs, CTs and angiograms, so the clinical application is really unique to this book.”

The second through seventh editions of the book have been printed since Haines has been a member of the UMC faculty. Haines said the book has influenced how medical neurology is taught.

Dr. James Corbett, professor and chair of neurology, said the book is useful to both the clinician and to the students and residents. He said Haines goes to great lengths to show anatomy from a clinically useful perspective and to include illustrations relevant to the material in the book.

“It pairs the detail in bite-sized amounts with an abundance of drawings that have been carefully designed to look like orientation of the brain and spinal cord in MRI and CT scans. That’s very important because a lot of the way you learn neuroanatomy is through what we call ‘eye blink,’ or seeing it,” Corbett said.

From the perspective of a basic science teacher, Dr. James Lynch, professor of anatomy, said the book is used primarily by first-year medical students. He said the book has continued to improve and is the most popular “brain atlas” in the world.

“It is the only brain atlas to emphasize brain anatomy in the orientation that is used in the clinic,” Lynch said.

In promoting this edition, the publisher asked how much clinical information is in the book. Haines said he counted all the clinical terms, which added up to 340. Through the Web site available with the book, every term is defined.

“This is unique. No other neuroanatomy atlas has that,” Haines said. “When compared against the competition, one of them has 16 clinical terms and another one has five or six.”

The book has evolved over the years so it can be used in clinical teaching. In 1983, MRI was new and even some of Haines’ clinical colleagues didn’t know how it would be used, but he decided to put 10 MRIs in the textbook. Now the book has more than 25 times that many.

All the blood vessel and pathway drawings went from black and white to color. If there’s a slice of the brain, there’s an MRI to reflect it. Many images have been replaced with better artwork or photographs, Haines said.

“It is clearly a successful educational tool when a book survives for 25 years, and it’s gotten stronger as it’s gone along,” he said.

—Patrice Sawyer Guilfoyle (10-15-07)

2007-10-15 00:00:00 17429