Introduction:

Medical eponyms are names given to different body structures after the people who discovered them. They have been used for centuries and have deep cultural roots, mainly in the medical sciences field, but they do not provide relevant information on the anatomical structure they denote.

Objective:

To identify the medical eponyms and obsolete anatomical terms used during the 13th Colombian Congress of Morphology.

Materials and methods:

The 52 oral presentations given during the 13th Colombian Congress of Morphology, held in October 2017 at Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia, were analyzed to quantify, in terms of percentage, the use of medical eponyms and obsolete anatomical terms.

Results:

Medical eponyms were used in 53.84% oral presentations, while obsolete anatomical terms were identified in 21 presentations.

Conclusion:

It was confirmed that, in general, professors, researchers and other health professionals who participated in the congress do not use Terminologia Anatomica as a reference source to name different body structures, which produces both communication and knowledge transfer problems.

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