Grant's Atlas of Anatomy

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS ON THE INSIDE???...CHECK OUT THIS BOOK...I BOUGHT IT TO SEE WHERE MY ORTHOPAEDIC SURGEON WAS GOING TO CARVE (ACTUALLY THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THE SAME ANKLE WILL BE MODIFIED)...NOW I WILL BE ABLE TO SEE WHAT HAS BEEN DONE AND WHAT IS ABOUT TO BE DONE...THANK YOU DRS. STEVEN ROSS AND JOHN WILSON JR....ALSO I CAN FOLLOW THE ROUTE GI JAY TOOK ON MY COLONOSCOPY (I REFER TO JAY P. DILIBERTO, MD)

This review is from the perspective of a first year medical student in Gross Anatomy.[...] Grant's Atlas shines when it is in the dissection room with you. The drawings are more realistic, and more often than not muscles are reflected out of view rather than being omitted completely (Netter). While this is indeed more realistic and allows you to see more muscle relationships, it slows down studying because of the more complicated mess you see before you. Therefore, it's best used in the lab when that complicated mess is EXACTLY what you are seeing. In all fairness, there are little schematic drawings that simplify important muscle relationships. It also comes with a CD with the images from the book allows you to turn off the labels and quiz yourself. There are also about 100 USMLE style anatomy questions. Netter's atlas shines for at home study away from your cadaver. It is more high-yield than Grant's atlas and makes for easier and faster learning. Grant, because of its thoroughness and more realistic perspective, can be a little bit of a chore to get through when cramming for a test. Netter said himself that he tried to find the balance between simplification and realism, and I personally think he did an outstanding job. I can study any of his diagrams and quickly see the most important relationships between muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, and bones. Ultimately, I would learn more using Grant's Atlas, but Netter is best when you are pushed for time. One thing I didn't like at first was that, unlike Grant's Atlas, Netter's doesn't have any text or tables. Then I found out that they were all on www.netteranatomy.com, which a pretty nice website that in my opinion give Netter's Atlas more value. So, in short, Grant's atlas and Netter's atlas are both excellent. Each can stand on its own, but they really do compliment each other a lot for being direct competitors; Grant's is the best while dissecting, and Netter's is best for studying for exams and the USMLE. [...]

This is re: 10th edition. Grant's atlas serves well to orient a student for performing disection. The drawings are very well suited to the actual condition of flesh after embalming. I found the text to be superior to other atlases (except Rohan) for understanding the spatial dimensions of a disection proceedure. Unfortunately, however, there are some major limitations to the Grant atlas. 1) Only a minority of possible structures are labeled on each drawing, ie, you may see CN 12 in the drawing, but it won't be labeled 2) Many of Netter's drawings are simplifications to make underlying patterns or details more understandable - this understanding of anatomy is lost in Grant's in preferrence for factual reporting. For most students, the intuition within Netter's drawings is far more valuable 3) Grant's atlas focuses on disection. Most students will never disect the dead again. An atlas like Netter focuses on surgical representations, which, of course, is more appropriate for long term understanding.

This is a wonderful book replete with full color illustrationsof the human anatomy. Each section has colored tabs for easeof reference. The book has the thorax, abdomen, pelvic area, back, lower limbs, head, neck and cranial area described indetail with a cross-reference to the applicable area of thehuman anatomy. This work would be perfect for students ofanatomy, biology, medicine and the natural sciences. Thepresentation would be helpful to complete almost any schoolproject imaginable. This would be a perfect gift for the studentin your house.

Comparisons are often made between Netter's Atlas and Grant's. Both are highly useful in the laboratory and for at home study. However, Grant's is clearly superior in the completeness of its treatment of what is really useful knowledge for the professional student. This is quite evident in the treatment of the head and neck where views that make learning of these two regions well are present in Grant's but absent in Netter's. For example, the posterior pharyngeal region in Netter is very incompletely represented. Further, the inclusion of various radiological modalities, comprehensive treatment of all regions, presentation of anomalies and structe from several different views, and descriptions accompanying the figures in Grant's Atlas are superior virtually absent in Netter's Atlas. Although Netter's illustrations are as accurate as are Grant's, and are all works of art, they are often overlabeled and, above all, do not represent well what the student is going to see in cadaver dissection as does Grants. I think that another competitor of Grant's Atlas, the Rohen and Yokochi atlas, is also a good atlas, provided you don't suffer from astigmatism and have to deal with the white labels used in this atlas to identify structures. Like Grants, however, this atlas shows the cadaver as it really is in the laboratory.