MEDICAL GROSS ANATOMY: Multiple Choice Questions

UPPER EXTREMITY

    After studying Gross Anatomy for the National Board Exams a second year student left Sackler at 1:00am and was mugged on Harrison Avenue. During the attack the student held his arm up to protect his head and was knifed on his forearm. Subsequently, while waiting to be seen in the emergency room at NEMCH, the student realized that he could no longer adduct his thumb.


  1. He immediately concluded that the knife must have directly injured his:

  2. To confirm his diagnosis, the student should check for absence of sensation in which part of his hand:

  3. He also should check for specific signs of:

    4. During a little league game one of the players accidently struck her teammate with her bat. When the bat hit the boy's arm there was an audible crack and the boy fell to the ground in pain. Luckily, one of the mothers watching was a physician and she rushed to the boy's aid. Quick examination showed her that the boy had a closed fracture in his upper arm.

  4. After watching him abduct and rotate the arm, she diagnosed damage to the:

  5. Damage to this nerve normally occurs when injury is located at the:

    6. While rollerblading to school a third year medical student slipped on some wet pavement and crashed into a building. When he got up from his fall he noticed he could not support his right arm and he had lost feeling on his shoulder. As he slowly made his way to the hospital he reviewed his knowledge of the shoulder joint.

  6. He remembered that the rotator cuff muscles associated with supporting the shoulder joint consist of all of the following except:

    7. A fourth year medical student fell off a ladder while installing a flood light above his garage and put his arm through a garage door window. When he got up from his fall he realized the glass had deeply cut the anterior aspect of his wrist and so he decided to go to the nearest emergency room. During his trip to the ER he studied his wrist and began to make an initial diagnosis. Remembering his training, he initially assumed that the cut had affected all of the muscles in his wrist and he proceeded to examine all of them.

  7. Since he was able to flex the distal phalangeal joints of his four medial digits and his thumb, he concluded the following muscles were uninjured:

  8. He then concludes that the following nerve(s) to the muscle(s) must also be intact:

  9. On further inspection he notes an inability to flex the proximal interphalengeal joints of his four medial fingers. He concludes from this information that he has injured his:

    10. Rollerblading to class one morning without her wrist guards on Elizabeth hit a curb and fell onto her outstretched left hand. When she got to school she noted tenderness in her wrist in the area of her anatomical snuff box and was concerned she may have fractured one of the bones in her wrist.

  10. The carpal bone forming part of the floor of the anatomical snuff box which is most often fractured is the:

  11. The medial wall of the anatomical snuff box consists of the tendon from:

  12. If Elizabeth did fracture one of her carpal bones in the snuff box of the wrist there might be a danger of bone necrosis. The artery travelling through the snuff box and supplying the bones in this area is the:

    13. While performing his first physical examination during a third year clerkship a self-conscious medical student performs a cursory breast exam. After quickly glancing at the woman's breasts and palpating them haphazardly, the student concludes that they are unremarkable for any signs of breast cancer. However, remembering back to the first year anatomy course, the student pauses and inspects the area of tissue beneath the woman's armpits, the Tail of Spence . Under the woman's right armpit he discovers a slightly enlarged lymph node. Upon closer inspection of the right breast, the student also discovers a small patch of thickened skin that is slightly dimpled in appearance (peau d'orange). When he relates these observations to the supervising resident they order a mammogram which supports their preliminary diagnosis of breast cancer.

  13. In addition to the axillary nodes, the lymphatic drainage of the breast involves direct connections to all of the following except:

  14. The five groups of lymph nodes in the axilla consist of all of the following except:

  15. The thickened skin in one area of the patient's right breast is most likely due to:

  16. The dimpling of the skin observed in the breast is probably due to: