[Development of a practice-oriented curriculum. 9. Arthrology]

The background problem this article addresses is the need to reduce the quantity of medical information to a standard core of knowledge relative to the overwhelming amount of scientific information to be learned in the limited amount of time students have available. The article is part of a study the aim of which is to define a core students, independent of their further medical specialization. The design of this study is a survey of a representative sample of Swiss general practitioners who were asked to identify in the list of Nomina Anatomica the most prevalent anatomical entities (terms) occurring in their practice. To assure the representativeness of the sample the identified terms were compared to prevalent diagnoses of all Swiss general practitioners and to the incidence of cases in German hospitals. From the list of International Anatomical Nomenclature (IANC) 280 anatomical terms could be identified with respect to arthrology. Of these, 250 were judged uniformly by the physicians: 52 terms were considered relevant, while it was not though necessary for 198 terms to be relevant, while it is was not thought necessary for 198 terms to be learned, i.e. general practitioners agreed on 89.3% of the terms. Only 29.7% of the terms in the IANC list belong to anatomical core knowledge in arthrology. There is evidence for the representativeness of these findings when compared to the prevalence of diagnoses made by general practitioners and to the incidence of cases in German hospitals. The method of using criteria of prevalence in a survey to identify a core of knowledge in medicine is suited for the definition of learning content necessary for professional purposes.