Approach to the educational opportunities provided by variant anatomy, illustrated by discussion of a duplicated inferior vena cava.

Variant anatomy recognized during routine cadaveric dissection in the first year of medical school offers great learning potential by allowing students to gain enhanced understanding of an array of important subjects. It provides a framework for reviewing common morphology and embryogenesis of the structure in question, and through the help of appropriate faculty, yields insight into the potential medical, radiologic, and surgical implications. The frequency of clinically important anatomic variation is high enough to allow the gross anatomy laboratory to serve as an excellent teaching platform in this regard. Through anatomy, the student is introduced to the concept of patient individuality, and to the individualization of medical and surgical therapies. Recently, one of the variations encountered in our lab was a duplicated inferior vena cava. We describe our approach to such findings through a systematic discussion of the anatomy and embryology, as well as the radiologic and clinical correlates. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.