Winking Skull

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Winkingskull.com is an interactive resource for medical students and people interested in science. Organized by body region, the user-friendly study-aid contains all the must-know concepts students usually encounter during their first year in medical school.

The American Medical Student Association offered the site exclusively to their 68,000 members for a limited period of time. Michael Ehlert, MD, national president of AMSA says "WinkingSkull.com is an excellent enhancement for students to hone their anatomy skills."

The website has an intuitive design which allows quick access to all the high-yield concepts first year medical students need to know: 'Trunk & Back,' 'Thorax,' 'Abdomen & Pelvis,' 'Upper Limb,' 'Lower Limb,' 'Head & Neck,' and 'Neuroanatomy.' There are labels on each body region that can be turned on and off. A testing feature is good for dragging and dropping labels onto the anatomical illustrations while being timed. Users may view test results to measure proficiency of the material and compare scores with other users.

WinkingSkull.com has many highly-detailed images adopted from the Thieme Atlas of Anatomy series. For eight years, the medical illustrators Karl Wesker and Markus Voll worked together on the atlas series using a digital drawing board. Thousands of anatomy illustrations emerged from that process and 200 of them are available on the free website.

The atlas series is known for its illustrations and production quality as well as its effectiveness in assisting healthcare professionals. The series presently consists of books and DVDs for "General Anatomy and Musculoskeletal System," "Neck and Internal Organs," and "Head and Neuroanatomy."