Medical Assistant Prep / Unit 3 MAS 055 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Four Shapes of Bone
Captions available
The idea
Bones come in four main shapes: long, short, flat and irregular.
In practice
Long bones are longer than they are wide, like the thigh bone; short bones are cube-like, as in the wrist and ankle; most skull bones are flat; vertebrae are irregular.
Where people slip
Shape matters in injury, because long bones carry weight and leverage, and fracture differently.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Medical Assistant Prep