ATSU-KCOM faculty co-authors research published by ‘The Anatomical Record’
Posted: March 24, 2022
Caroline VanSickle, PhD, assistant professor in the Anatomy department at A.T. Still University’s Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, recently co-authored research published in the journal The Anatomical Record.
Dr. VanSickle wrote the research article with Kylea L. Liese, Phd, CNM, and Julienne N. Rutherford, PhD, both of University of Chicago. The article, “Textbook typologies: Challenging the myth of the perfect obstetric pelvis,” was published in February.
“The human obstetric pelvis varies in complex ways that are healthy and normal such that neither individual clinical pelvimetric dimensions nor the artificial typologies developed from these measurements can be clearly correlated with obstetric outcomes,” the project’s abstract says. “We critique the continued inclusion of clinical pelvimetry and the Caldwell–Moloy classification system in biomedical curricula for the racism that was inherent in the development of these techniques and that has clinical consequences today. We call for textbooks, curricula, and clinical practices to abandon these outdated, racist techniques. In their place, we call for a truly evidence-based practice of obstetrics and midwifery, one based on an understanding of the complexity and variability of the physiology of pregnancy and birth. Instead of using false typologies that lack evidence, this change would empower both pregnant people and practitioners.”