Quick. Do you know where your heart is?

That is not a silly question if Americans are much like the British. A new study showed that more than half of participants did not know, exactly, where their hearts were.

Why is it important to know? As noted, it can affect your care and your care decisions over time.

You don’t have to be able to make an A on an Anatomy quiz but you should know your body better.

In the case of the heart, were you having heart problems, you need to be able to report where the pain is. No one can do that as well as possible if the location of the organ is more vague than real.

Imagine that you have to have knee surgery. Knees are greatly under-appreciated by people who never have had any problem. Knees are, in fact, intricate, sophisticated joints which perform for us without our even thinking twice.

Were you to have to consider surgery, it would be better if you had a basic understanding of knees before you have to make a decision about a procedure and the “discomfort” of recovery.

Medline Plus, the website for consumers and patients, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine, is packed with interesting illustrations, tutorials and text about many subjects, including the anatomy basics.

If you are about to go to see your doctor about a stomach problem, it would be a good use of time to read about the stomach before you go.  The doctor will use terms about this organ you will have read at least once. It won’t be all new to you. Even this limited information may help you ask better questions.

If you have a favorite health website, use it, but only after being sure that it is sponsored by a reliable organization giving you accurate information.

The term used to refer to what patients know is “patient literacy.” You want to be as literate as possible.

CNN

“If home is where the heart is, a new survey suggests that most people aren’t sure exactly where they live. More than half of people cannot pinpoint the exact location of the human heart on a diagram, and nearly 70 percent can’t correctly identify the shape of the lungs, according to the survey.

“This lack of knowledge isn’t just embarrassing — it could lead to a poorer quality of health care, some experts say.

“In the study, published in the journal BMC Family Practice, a research team surveyed 722 Britons — 589 hospital outpatients and 133 people in the general population. They gave the volunteers four diagrams of human figures and asked them to choose the one that showed the correct size and location of a specific organ. (For example, the heart diagrams showed various size organs on the far left side of the chest, directly in the center, anchored on the center/left chest, and on the right side of the chest.)

“Overall, people knew less basic anatomy than the researchers expected — even those patients being treated for a specific condition involving that organ. Participants generally answered half of the questions correctly, including 46.5 percent who knew which drawing represented their heart. In all, 31.4 percent correctly identified the lungs, 38.4 percent the stomach, 41.8 percent the thyroid, and 42.5 percent the kidneys.”

Source: CNN, June 15, 2009 (Update)

Citation: BMC Family Practice 2009, 10:43. Published June 12, 2009