TUTORIAL
PURPOSE
· Illustrate the usefulness of the Organ Knowledge Organization Template (KOT) for retrieving and organizing information associated with a specific organ; in this instance, the lung.
· Acquire specific knowledge about the lungs that enables you to reason anatomically and solve anatomical and clinical problems.
PRE-CLASS OBJECTIVES
· Visualize the lungs.
· Define the lung.
· Retrieve and organize structural information about the macroscopic anatomy of the lungs specified by the KOT for organ.
· Using the ‘quiz’ in the Digital Anatomist atlas, test the factual knowledge you acquired of the lung.
PREPARATION FOR CLASS
1. Update your knowledge
Know the definition of organ by heart.
Finalize your
own version of the Knowledge Organization Template for Organ.
2.
Visualize
the lungs.
Exercise 1:
Abstract and Concrete concepts.
The purpose of this exercise is to illustrate
· the importance of visualization for defining and learning about concrete anatomical structures;
· the level of knowledge that can be represented graphically (images, models, volumetric data).
In the FM, open up the Ao of Anatomical structure to the level ‘Organ’ and its children (subclasses) until you get to ‘lung’.
Note that all the parents of ‘lung’ are abstract concepts.
You cannot visualize these classes (i.e., see them with your mind’s eye, find or draw a picture of them), although you may be able think of instances (examples) of them, which you could visualize.
Consider the sibling concepts of ‘lung’.
Which ones can you visualize?
Are these equally as abstract as the parent classes of lung?
What about the lung? Can you find a picture of ‘lung’ in an atlas?
Compare that with children of lung.
You have reached a level in the Ao at which classes of structures are sufficiently concrete for representing them graphically.
Consider, however, that even though you can find pictures of the left and right lung (and you could learn to visualize either with your mind’s eye), the right and left lungs as such are not concrete physical objects.
The concrete object is your own or John Doe’s left or right lung.
Although ‘right lung’ ‘left lung’ are so called “leaf concepts” or instances in the Ao hierarchy, in truth, they are still classes.
The children of classes ‘left lung’, ‘right lung’ (not entered in the FM) are the true concrete objects or instances of an anatomy ontology.
We distinguish between these two kinds of leaf concepts by referring to the ‘right lung’ and ‘left lung’ as ‘leaf concepts of canonical anatomy’’ and to John Doe’s ‘right lung’ and ‘left lung’ as ‘leaf concepts of instantiated anatomy’’.
In the web-based anatomy programs (see URLs in resources) find graphical illustrations of leaf concepts of canonical anatomy and instantiated anatomy of the lungs.
Be ready to point to these in class.
Conclusion we can reach from this exercise:
· traditional anatomy sources deal mainly with information that relates to ‘leaf concepts of canonical anatomy’’, whereas clinical medicine, and clinical imaging in particular, deal with ‘leaf concepts of instantiated anatomy’’;
· visualization of canonical leaf concepts can capture a great deal of anatomical information about quite concrete anatomical entities;
· therefore, provides for efficiency for defining and learning about canonical leaf concepts.
Exercise 2: Do
you have a mental image of the lung? What does the lung look like?
Think whether you can see a lung (left or right or a ‘generic’ lung) when you close your eyes. If not, try to remember a picture you may have seen of it (them).
Draw this image if you can. Save the drawing, label it #1 and bring it to class with its subsequent versions.
Retrieve at least six different images of the right lung and six of the left lung.
For resource uselect: Lungs and Bronchial Tree/3D Lung reconstructions and explore all the pink images. Use movies liberally if you are working from the CD.
You can also find cadaver sections and radiological images in Digital Anatomist that illustrate the lungs.
If you are not familiar with radiology, you might want to start in Radiology Exercises with the chapter on Introduction to Radiology and move to section 3: Normal Chest x-ray.
Later explore the chapter Lungs.
Search other sites for the lungs and aim to inspect (may be even copy and save) different types of graphical representations (e.g., medical art, line drawings, photograph of cadaver specimen, sections from Visible Human).
Did viewing these images influence your original mental image of the lungs?
Redraw your updated mental image and save it as version 2.
If you could not generate one, select one from the retrieved images that you want to “own” or mentally recall as a reference.
Once you are able to do that, you have filled in the first field of KOT for lung.
The mental image should help you to define the lung and to link information in the other fields of the KOT to this image.
Exercise 3: Hollow, solid, in between?
Before
proposing a definition of the lung, think about the following questions and
answer them in writing.
Is the lung hollow?
Filled with material composed of various tissues?
Has it got any spaces within it?
What would you compare its consistency with?
Re-examine the sectional images of the lung with these questions in mind.
Answer the questions in writing.
Return to the FM and review its parents in the Ao.
Look up the meaning any word you do not understand.
3.
Define
the lung
Exercise 4:
What is it about the lung that makes it to be the lung rather than the heart or
the liver?
We have taken it as a given that the lung is an organ.
Can you prove that it meets the criteria in the definition of organ?
The lung’s definition must also specify what kind of an organ the lung is.
Recall the previous tutorial on Organ and the criteria or characteristics according to which organs can be classified.
Propose (in writing) a definition for the lung based on your common sense knowledge and on what you have learned in the previous exercises.
Distinguish an anatomical definition from a functional one.
You can write separate anatomical and functional definitions for the lung.
Compare your definitions with those in sources accessible to you (Webster’s, Dorland’s, FM, textbook chapter).
In particular evaluate the definition of lung in the FM.
Revise your definitions. Remember, yours may be better than those in the sources.
This completes the second field of KOT for lung.
4.
Retrieve
and organize structural information about the macroscopic anatomy of the lungs
specified by the KOT for organ.
The KOT you generated in the previous class is valid for all classes of organ.
Traditional sources of anatomical information, such as textbooks, do not organize their content according to this template.
Your task is to reorganize the lung chapter of a textbook according to the organ KOT.
The chapter contains a lot of information and you should be selective.
When you scan/read it, you should do so with the question in mind: to which field of the organ KOT does this bit of information belong?
Exercise 5: Re-sorting the Lung chapter
Retrieve the organ KOT and the list you generated of the questions you should ask about an organ. Make a copy of them, into which you can enter information.
Go through sections of RGR Chapter 20: The Lungs.
Omit sections on development, all the sections in small print, the detailed branching of the bronchial tree and blood vessel within the lung, lymphatic, nerve supply. Focus on external and internal anatomy, lobes, and bronchopulmonary segments.
Do this in one of two ways:
· Take the questions one by one and seek out the answer to each in the text
· Scan the chapter and identify which question the section of the text is answering.
Enter the answers in the KOT and questions documents you created.
The resulting KOT will in effect be an outline of the chapter.
You will have created a frame-based representation of information about the lungs.
It may take you too much time to cover the entire chapter.
You may chose to do a superficial job with the whole chapter, or a thorough job with selected parts of the chapter.
This exercise completes the remaining fields of the KOT that pertain to the Anatomical Structural Abstraction (ASA) of the lung.
5.
Using
the ‘quiz’ in the Digital Anatomist atlas, test the factual knowledge you
acquired of the lung.
Enhance your knowledge of the structures you have entered in the KOT of lung by navigating the ‘Introduction to Thoracic Viscera’ and ‘The Lungs and Bronchial Tree’ chapters of the Digital Anatomist atlas.
Do the quiz on as many scenes in the atlas as you can manage.
Knowing the names of structures will facilitate your participation in the class.
RECAPITULATION
Reread the lung chapter after the class.
Complete the self-evaluation test after the class.
RESOURCES
Digital Anatomist Interactive Atlases
Lung Knowledge Organization Template