Anatomy is a vital part of the medical curriculum

Students examine a model of the human body at an anatomy class. Photograph: Getty

Prof Chris Ward is right to point out that “softer skills” in the medical course cannot be readily learned in the classroom (Letters, 4 July).

However, the opinion that instead of “memorising lots of anatomy” the subject should be learned as it becomes clinically relevant, may speak of the medical course in the very dim and distant past but not of the present.