Student guide · Page 4 of 8
The Anatomy Time Out
Three questions that open every session, answered before the first cut.
Every lab session opens with the Anatomy Time Out: three questions, answered once per donor per session, before the first cut.
On a lab day the Donor Imaging tab raises a banner until your service has recorded it, and the Dissection card on the chart says the same. You answer it on the exam map, which is where you will be writing anyway.
The three questions
- What are the objectives for this session?
- What are the must-find structures?
- What is of critical clinical concern for patient care?
It takes two minutes. Like the Donor Record, it belongs to the session and the donor rather than to you individually, so whoever fills it in has their name and the time kept against it.
Why a surgical ritual is in an anatomy lab
A surgical time out is the pause before the first incision where the team says out loud who the patient is, what is about to happen, and what could go wrong. It exists because teams that skip it operate on the wrong side.
What is of critical clinical concern for patient care is not “what are we dissecting today”. It is what about this donor changes what you should expect. A sternotomy scar means adhesions. Hardware means the plane you were taught will not be where the book puts it.
Answering it forces you to read the Donor Record and the imaging before you start, which is the actual point.
Before documenting, not after. The Time Out is answered on the way in. Filled in at the end of a session instead, it turns into paperwork, which is what it is designed not to be.
The habit is the part that matters. Ask the three questions at the table before the first cut, whether or not the screen has already asked you for them.
At the end of the session the Sign Out asks three more, answering the three you opened with. That is the other half of the same checklist.