Study Anatomy at Otago

Toni Hoeta:

Kia ora, I’m Toni, and I’m a Master’s student in the Anatomy Department. My two favourite subjects that I studied in Anatomy were Bioanthropology, which is the study of bones and how they evolved over time, and Neuroscience – my favourite – the brain. I’m obsessed with it. Look at it!

Dr Christine Jasoni:

Hey everybody, my name is Christine, and I’m a lecturer in the Department of Anatomy. I’m here today to tell you a little bit about what studying Anatomy is all about at the University of Otago.

Now, I think when a lot of people hear Anatomy as a subject, they think of skeletons and maybe guts and that kind of stuff. While that’s true, those things do happen in Anatomy, but there’s lots of other stuff that happens in Anatomy, and you’ll learn all that in your study.

One way that you can think about Anatomy is that we’re interested in understanding how the body is put together and how that makes it function in the way that it does. Of course, we’re also interested in understanding what happens when it breaks or when we have diseases, and then how we can maybe try different ways of fixing it when it does break or when we have diseases.

The thing that’s cool about Anatomy is that it’s quite broad. If you come to the University of Otago to study Anatomy, you’ll be able to study all these things about your body and about our bodies. You’ll also learn about how humans have evolved and come to populate the Pacific by studying their skeletons.

Because it’s so varied, it allows you to craft a degree that is fit for you. We have a lot of different papers, and the way the degree is structured allows you to study just the things that you really like. You get to emphasise those and learn a lot more about them.

Toni (continued):

I came here in first year studying Health Sciences to be a doctor, but I fell in love with this guy right here (the brain) and just got obsessed with Anatomy. The lecturers and the lab demonstrators support you and just further that curiosity. You have so many questions that you want to ask, and you get answers, but then they provide more questions, and then you get more answers. It’s an obsession.

Christine (continued):

In addition to the topics that Tony is super interested in, we have a couple of other areas of study in Anatomy that people also find really interesting – Reproduction and Development, and that is about understanding how your body developed and how it took its form even before you were born. Clinical and Functional Anatomy is where bones and the more traditional anatomy study come into play. In this area, people are interested in understanding things like why knees always go out when people play sport or how to fix a bad back.

As you can see, the choices you have in Anatomy are really broad and can help you understand yourself and your place in the world.

Toni (continued):

I came here to study Medicine – only two places in New Zealand offer it: Auckland and Otago – but I fell in love with research, at least for now. That’s the greatest part. Everything that you study just opens another door.

I do research at the moment, but I could also enter Medicine next year, or I could go into government policy and change things. My options are limitless, and Otago has taught me that.

Christine (continued):

As you can probably imagine, because Anatomy is so broad, it’s quite popular. We have a lot of students who are majoring in Anatomy, and our student community is really robust. It’s big, and you’ve got lots of exposure to other Anatomy majors. And I'll leave it to Toni to tell you about that.

Toni (final thoughts):

The community is so wide, and you meet such a diverse range of people who are like-minded but also so crazy. I met my lab partner in Reproductive and Developmental Biology, and we became friends – then we became flatmates. How crazy is that?

Christine (final thoughts):

So, the last thing I wanted to tell you about, is what do you do after you get a degree in Anatomy? People who’ve majored in Anatomy over the years have ended up in an enormous variety of careers. The variety you get in Anatomy is mirrored by the variety of career opportunities you have when you graduate.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people go into the health professions – things like Medicine, Dentistry, and Physiotherapy. But many others go into allied health professions like Nursing, Optometry, Ophthalmology, and Genetic Counselling.

We also have graduates who have taken on roles as teachers of Biology, Anatomy, and Science, as well as many who go into Science Communication. If you’re really into the study, you might find yourself doing research in Anatomy.

One of the really popular career paths is going into government and communicating science to inform policy-making. This allows science to guide government officials when they’re making decisions about how the country will work.