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Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature
Medical literature is home to fancy descriptions, poetic metaphors, and ingenious comparisons. However, some comparisons can disguise the knowledge gap. Large surfaces in the human body, like the alveolar surface for gas exchange, villi for food absorption, and the endothelial lining of blood vessel...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cureus
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8863270/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35223255 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21474 |
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author | Ananda Rao, Amogh Johncy, Smilee |
author_facet | Ananda Rao, Amogh Johncy, Smilee |
author_sort | Ananda Rao, Amogh |
collection | PubMed |
description | Medical literature is home to fancy descriptions, poetic metaphors, and ingenious comparisons. However, some comparisons can disguise the knowledge gap. Large surfaces in the human body, like the alveolar surface for gas exchange, villi for food absorption, and the endothelial lining of blood vessels, are frequently compared to a “tennis court.” This narrative review explores this metaphor in detail, the discrepancies and factual inaccuracies across medical literature. It highlights the inappropriate use of Euclidean geometry and introduces fractal geometry, a language to define roughness. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8863270 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Cureus |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88632702022-02-26 Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature Ananda Rao, Amogh Johncy, Smilee Cureus Medical Education Medical literature is home to fancy descriptions, poetic metaphors, and ingenious comparisons. However, some comparisons can disguise the knowledge gap. Large surfaces in the human body, like the alveolar surface for gas exchange, villi for food absorption, and the endothelial lining of blood vessels, are frequently compared to a “tennis court.” This narrative review explores this metaphor in detail, the discrepancies and factual inaccuracies across medical literature. It highlights the inappropriate use of Euclidean geometry and introduces fractal geometry, a language to define roughness. Cureus 2022-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8863270/ /pubmed/35223255 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21474 Text en Copyright © 2022, Ananda Rao et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Medical Education Ananda Rao, Amogh Johncy, Smilee Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature |
title | Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature |
title_full | Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature |
title_fullStr | Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature |
title_full_unstemmed | Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature |
title_short | Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature |
title_sort | tennis courts in the human body: a review of the misleading metaphor in medical literature |
topic | Medical Education |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8863270/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35223255 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21474 |
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