Written by Kento Kamiyama PT, DPT
The last weekend of June, I attended a anatomy palpation and corrective exercise course called Immaculate Dissection II: Dissecting the Lower Extremity taught by Dr. Kathy Dooley as a lead instructor with the help from Anna Folkomer and Danny Quirk. When I call this an anatomy course, I may not be doing it justice. It was way more than that.
Immaculate Dissection (ID) is a course for individuals who are not able to experience gross anatomy to dissect cadavers. Danny Quirk, an anatomical artist utilizes body paint to paint different muscles on a human body to utilize that as part of the learning process. His art work (which is mind blowing) brings the anatomy to life and allows the attendees have a close to cadaver like atmosphere. As Dr. Kathy Dooley would put it, they took the ‘gross’ out of Gross Anatomy. Anna Folkomer, herbalist and acupuncturist, helps with the administration process and also assists the course through modeling and helping out the lab portion.
What makes ID different is not just the palpation practices performed but also the ability of Dr. Kathy Dooley to add clinical importance and pearls on WHY and WHEN certain structures are important. Since she is also an anatomist, chiropractor and movement specialist she brings the anatomy alive by making the anatomy more clinically relevant. You will also receive many different clinical pearls on how certain structures can be involved with certain impairments, movements, gait, etc. As a physical therapist these were beyond awesome. I’m a big fan of the fundamentals and having a deeper understanding of the anatomy really helps out with my clinical thought process.
The 2nd day of the course emphasized corrective exercises that involved the anatomy learned on the first day. We went over fundamental exercise patterns such as hip rocking, squatting, 1/2 kneel hip flexors stretches, deadlifting, Turkish Get Ups, etc to understand how the anatomy works together to create the movements mentioned above. I loved it when she explained that the exercises are nothing new but when performed well, it’s challenging and safe.
Working on my frontal plane stability
While some anatomy and palpation courses cost grand or a couple grand, this course is affordable for many professions with great quality and in depth knowledge you won’t get else where.
Some great pointers that Dr. Kathy Dooley has pointed out (not in exact words):
– If your muscles don’t eccentrically load well, it won’t concentrically load well
– Its not that you need pronation or supination, you need both
– Bursa’s are high in nociceptors, meniscus and ligaments are not (maybe one of the reasons why some can live without having an ACL)
I strongly recommend this course to all who want to learn more about anatomy and learn how to clinically apply it. For more information, go to their link at Immaculate Dissection.
Thanks for a great course guys!!
