Tales from the Edinburgh Anatomy Department

Gordon Findlater, Emeritus Professor of Translational Anatomy, taught anatomy at the University of Edinburgh for 32 years and retired in 2016. Since retiring from the University, he was appointed Wade Professor of Surgical Anatomy for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2017, of which he is a fellow. Professor Findlater was appointed His Majesty’s Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland in 2017, a post which requires him to inspect, on an annual basis, the anatomy departments of all five Scottish medical schools to ensure that they conform to the legal requirements of the Anatomy Act (Scotland). Professor Findlater now lives in the North of Scotland.

Leena Alkhammash is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at UBC. She holds an MSc in Human Anatomy from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and a BSc in Basic Medical Sciences from the Libyan International Medical University, Libya. Leena is passionate about teaching and has taught anatomy for almost 7 years in different universities in Jordan, Scotland, St Kitts in the Caribbean, Switzerland, and currently as a TA in UBC anatomy labs. Here at the HIVE, her research work currently focuses on comparing the use of virtual and physical anatomy labs in teaching undergraduate students, and her doctoral research will utilize these results to create a virtual multimedia anatomy teaching tool. Leena is supervised by Dr. Claudia Krebs from the HIVE together with an interdisciplinary team of professors from the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, Department of Psychology, and Department of Film & Theatre. As an international student, Leena is a recipient of UBC’s Four Year Fellowship (4YF). She loves cooking and has served as one of the Cooking Directors at UBC’s Cooking Club, and also enjoys traveling and learning about new cultures, snorkeling, hiking, and gardening.