How to Study Osteology in First Year: A Method for Spotters and Viva
Osteology is the part of anatomy you can score in reliably, because the questions repeat. The examiner hands you a bone and expects the same sequence every time. Learn the sequence and practise it on real bones.
Describe every bone in the same order
- Identify the bone and say what type it is (long, short, flat, irregular).
- Side determination: upper end, front, medial. See side determination of the femur and humerus.
- Anatomical position: hold it the way it sits in the body.
- General features: ends, borders and surfaces, one at a time.
- Attachments: the muscles and ligaments attached to each feature.
- Articulations: which bones it meets and at which joints.
- Applied anatomy: common fractures and the nerves or vessels at risk.
If you always speak in this order you will not dry up in the viva, because the next heading tells you what to say.
A weekly routine that works
- Read with the bone in your hand. Find each landmark on the bone as you read its name. Reading without the bone does not stick.
- One region a week. Upper limb, lower limb, thorax and vertebral column, then skull.
- Draw the attachments. A rough outline of the bone with origins and insertions marked is enough.
- Say it aloud. Pair up and take turns as examiner and student, using the order above.
- Revise by spotting. Put the bones in a bag, pull one out, identify it and give its side within a few seconds.
Sample viva questions: lower limb
Why does an intracapsular fracture of the neck of the femur risk avascular necrosis of the head?
The head is supplied mainly by retinacular branches of the medial circumflex femoral artery that run along the neck; the fracture tears them.
Give the boundaries and contents of the femoral triangle.
Base: inguinal ligament. Lateral: medial border of sartorius. Medial: medial border of adductor longus. Contents from lateral to medial: femoral nerve, artery, vein and lymphatics.
What is the Trendelenburg sign?
When the patient stands on the affected leg, the pelvis drops on the opposite, unsupported side. It shows weakness of gluteus medius and minimus (superior gluteal nerve).
Which nerve is injured at the neck of the fibula, and what is the result?
The common fibular (peroneal) nerve. Foot drop with loss of dorsiflexion and eversion, and sensory loss over the dorsum of the foot.
The XBONZ Anatomy Lab has many more viva questions, clinical cases, spotter tests and timed mock exams, alongside a 3D model of every bone, muscle and nerve.
What you need
- A bone set: see unilateral vs bilateral, or go straight to the unilateral and bilateral sets.
- Your prescribed anatomy textbook.
- A 3D atlas for the views a textbook cannot show.
This is a revision aid. Check it against your course textbook and what your department teaches.