Ask people where their kidneys are, and they're apt to point to the wrong place, suggests a recent study in the journal BMC Family Practice.
Researchers at King's College in London gave participants drawings of the body with different areas shaded in and asked them which drawing showed the correct location of various organs.
Of those taking part in the study, 589 were patients and 133 were from the general public. The public did best locating the intestines (94% correct) but not as good on the heart (55.6%) or kidneys (27.1%).
The aim of the project was to see whether patients and the general public are any more knowledgeable about their bodies than they were 40 years ago, when a similar study was conducted.
Lead researcher John Weinman says he was initially surprised to find that the public's knowledge of anatomy hasn't improved over the years, given the increased availability of health information.
But in some ways, he says, the findings make sense: "We remember things on a need-to-know and need-to-understand basis. That need hasn't changed over time, even with the greater exposure to health issues."
Weinman adds that one of the most interesting findings was that patients being treated for a problem with a specific organ were no more likely to correctly identify that organ than people with healthy organs.
"You would imagine that once somebody has a specific clinical problem, they would be more aware of the location of the organ," he says.
Jeffrey Laitman, a professor of anatomy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and president-elect of the American Association of Anatomists, says lacking a knowledge of anatomy is a "vestige" of an earlier time when learning about the body was considered taboo by many.
"It's really very sad that in this day and age, when we know everything about Facebook accounts and can tell you everything about the iPhone, that people don't know where their kidneys are," he says.
Laitman says the lack of knowledge can affect a patient's care.
"Where it becomes a problem is if you are so unknowledgeable that you can't communicate with your health provider about the most basic things," he says. "Knowledge is power, and power is protection, so individuals have to become more and more a partner in dealing with their health."
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.