Digital Histology Interest Group or DHIG

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  • 1.  Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 09-07-2014 18:56
    Hello DHIG!

    I have been quite busy with med, dent and grad student teaching for the past several weeks so I haven't been able to check in on here as often as I'd like.  Hope everyone has been doing great!

    While teaching epithelium to my graduate students and concurrently watching someone else's epithelium lecture for dental and medical students, it occurred to me that perhaps I might have been overdoing the glands classification - simple vs. compound; tubular vs. acinar vs. tubuloacinar.  I think it's still reasonable for anatomy graduate students to learn to classify glands, but what are your thoughts on undergrads, medical and dental students?  Do you teach glands and expect them to classify them?

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    Lisa Lee
    Associate Professor
    University of Colorado School of Medicine
    Aurora CO
    303-724-7460
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  • 2.  RE: Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 09-08-2014 12:59
    Lisa

    Here at UC, we dispensed with having the students learn simple vs. compound, tubular vs. acinar about 10 years ago.  We still describe them in lecture just so they were aware of the classification, but since they couldn't tell on a slide whether the parotid gland was simple or compound, it became straight memorization, so we stopped requiring it.  It just became too high maintenance in the lab explaining to them these terms, and they always asked how to tell which is which on their slides (to which we explained you can't).
    We still have them learn serous vs. mucous, and even unicellular vs multicellular, since that is something they can see and remember. 

    DJ

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    Donald Lowrie
    Professor - Educator
    University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
    Cincinnati OH
    513-558-5032
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 09-08-2014 16:05
    Hi Lisa,

    Although I have retired from active classroom teaching almost 8 years ago, I still continue writing textbooks and, in that fashion, I am still teaching, though at a distance. In my textbooks, atlases, and review books I still discuss the classification of exocrine glands and if I were still lecturing I would still go through the classification scheme. I would expect medical and dental students to know that there are unicellular and multicellular glands. I would want them to know that there are serous, mucous, and mixed glands and examples of each. As far as acinar, tubular, tubuloacinar are concerned, if they knew that that's great but if they didn't that would also be fine with me. I would want them to know that the ducts of some glands branch and some do not, but as to whether a gland is simple or compound, that would not be of consequence in my view. My reason for this is not that I think that it is unimportant for these students to know this material, but because the scant amount of class time devoted to the Anatomical Sciences demand that we reduce the quantity of factual information that students are expected to learn. 
    Of course, in many other countries Histology, Embryology, Neuroanatomy, and Gross Anatomy are full-fledged courses that resemble those taught in US Medical and Dental School in the 1960's and their medical and dental students are expected to know as much as our students did in the 1960's. 

    Les

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    Leslie P. Gartner
    Professor of Anatomy (Retired)
    Dental School
    University of Maryland
    Baltimore, MD
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 09-09-2014 10:29
    Donald and Leslie,

    Thank you very much for your input!  I totally agree that gland classification is high maintenance and given the ever decreasing contact hours for anatomical sciences, it is perhaps the most logical topic to drop.  I like it because they challenge the students to extrude a complex 3D structure from a single plane and get them to practice that skill over and over again.  

    Leslie, I have been using your books for years and it is a required text for dental students here.  It's really nice to hear your perspective on this.

    Lisa

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    Lisa Lee
    Associate Professor
    University of Colorado School of Medicine
    Aurora CO
    303-724-7460
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 09-11-2014 11:22
    Hi Lisa,

    One of the things that I did during my first Histology lecture to a new group of students was to draw on the blackboard (physical blackboard) a series of circles and ovals filled with white chalk and some with various sizes of yellow circles inside the white structures and told them all of these were derived from a single three-dimensional object. I asked them not to tell me what the object was until I asked them a couple of minutes later. Almost all of the students recognized that the drawings represented a hard boiled egg. This seemed to help them understand how to reconstruct 3-D structures from 2-D views.
    Thank you for your kind words about my textbooks. I tried something new on the Kindle platform where I wanted to offer students a low cost alternatives by publishing through Jen House a number of short books in the Anatomical Sciences as well as one full sized textbook - the 3rd Edition of my Oral Histology and Embryology - all under ten dollars. I don't know how this will turn out, but I hope that this will induce other publishers to decrease the cost of textbooks. 

    Les

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    Leslie Gartner
    Professor of Anatomy (Retired)
    Reisterstown MD
    410-218-1659
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE:Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 09-10-2014 08:55
    hello Lisa,
    here at the University of Ibadan, our emphasis to medical and dental students are on the histological features of serous and mucous glands though we explain the basis of classifying gland as simple/ branched, tubular/acinar/tubuloacinar
    Glands are studied more in details in the teaching of system based embryology
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    Modupeola Bolaji
    University of Ibadan
    Lagos LA
    2.35E+12
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Glands: To classify or not to classify, that is ithe question...

    Posted 10-29-2014 21:49
    Hi Lisa,
    I teach undergraduate anatomy. We use Ross and Pawlina text and Leboffe atlas. I don't ask the students to know these details; I try to stick to the glands we can observe with our slide set. We do go over these classifications during the discussion though.
    Mel

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    Melville Vaughan
    Professor of Biology
    University of Central Oklahoma
    Edmond OK
    405-974-5725
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    Original Message