Thyroidea Ima

This is a story from long ago. Once upon a time, I was a medical student. In the second quarter, we took gross anatomy of the head,neck, and trunk. It was a lot more fun than the first quarter which was the back and lower extremity. This is where the more interesting stuff resides. We named our cadaver "Earnest" so we could always say that we were working in dead earnest.

We had not been in the lab more than a week when we found out that "cutthroats" were not looked kindly upon by fellow students or professors. A "cutthroat" is/are student(s) that have some knowledge of a fact and do not share with their compatriots. This could lead to an unfair advantage, and at least the appearance of such. After all we had done to get to medical school, it just wasn't done. A class with cutthroats was always a bad class.

In the gross anatomy lab one day, our group of four found a structure that wasn't supposed to be where it was. It was an artery coming right off the arch of the aorta and running into the neck. After combing our books, we called the lab assistant over and asked him. He did not know. He got the professor, Dr. F to come over, and he identified the artery as the Thyroidea Ima. In 1-2 % of people, this remains after birth from an embryonic vessel to the thyroid gland.

OK. So now it was time give our classmates a quiz. We started with the ones who were always at the top on quizes, etc. We asked them over to our table in small groups, and nobody had a clue. When everyone had been puzzled, we told them what it was. A couple of weeks later, we had a lab practical exam. This is a test where you have a sheet of paper with numbers on it, and you go from cadaver table to cadaver table finding small tags attached to structures. You then name the structure or answer a question about it on the paper. Our Thyroidea Ima Artery was tagged.

A day or so later, Dr. F passed the papers back and as he came by our table, he said, "Gentlemen, I placed the tag on the Thyroidea Ima to see if you were cutthroats. I am happy to say that your fellow students got the correct name as well as yourselves. I like that."

Our mid-term written exam was another story that will come later.