Anomalous Left Hepatic Vein

Abstract

Gross, human anatomy is something that has been studied for ages. The biggest problem facing the scientists, biology students and the rest of the medical community today is the lack of dimension through which we perceive anatomical structure. It’s difficult for most people to identify organs, organ systems and tissues at various perspectives because it’s not what they’re used to observing. Most people have only seen anatomy from profile views in clinical textbooks. My research is in the realm of altering the way the public and professionals view anatomy. This illustration is a finalized sketch, the basis of a larger project, of a heart and liver connected by major vessels and ducts as well as a unique, anomalous left hepatic vein viewed at a quarter profile. In the future the sketch will be used a template for illustrating a 3-D, interactive model of these organs working together as part of an educational software package. (The emphasis on anomalous, anatomical structures is so that a viewer looking at gross structures will acknowledge that there are subtle variations between each human body—the anomalous left hepatic vein being a extremely rare documented case).