Every Podiatrist or Podiatry student needs to have a foot and ankle anatomy book. There are many books on the market for lower extremity anatomy. Which are the best ones? While, there is not one “best” book, it has more to do with which book is right for you. In other words, for what purpose do you need your foot and ankle anatomy book. Do you need an anatomy book for your lower extremity anatomy class or do you want an anatomy book to help you with surgery or residency? Different books accomplish different goals. Below I have broken down the anatomy books and which ones are good for which people.
For a book for lower extremity anatomy class, Sarrafian’s Anatomy of the Foot and Ankle: Descriptive, Topigraphical and Functional– This is by far the most used foot and ankle anatomy text. This uses real life photographs and cross sections and goes into great detail of every structure of the lower extremity. If you go to Amazon it has four reviews all our five star reviews. Now it is pricey for a foot and ankle anatomy text running between 135-150. But, if you are serious about Podiatry and your anatomy class, then this is the book you need. This is the best anatomy foot and ankle textbook on the market and there is not a close second.
But if you want a cheaper alternative there is McMinn’s Color Atlas of Foot and Ankle– The major drawback to this book is unlike Sarrafian’s, this book does not use pictures but uses drawings. If drawings is your preference on how to learn then purchase McMinn. It runs $50-75 cheaper then Sarrafian’s.
One alternative you might want to consider is an older book: the Color Atlas of the Foot and Ankle. It can be bought used for about $40-$50. This book uses pictures to label the foot and ankle. While it will not offer the text of Sarraffian’s and McMinn, it does offer concise foot and ankle anatomy without a lot of bells and whistles. You can easily get through anatomy class with this book
Now another anatomy book to consider is Surgical Exposures of the Foot and Ankle, The Anatomic Approach— This book is different in that it is prepared and written by the foot and ankle surgeon’s view. They do not spend time worrying about every muscle and tendons insertion, origin and innervation. This book will go into finite detail of what anatomy you will encounter during specific surgical procedures such as bunionectomies. Remember, as a Podiatry student or Podiatrist one of the main reasons you are learning anatomy is to perform surgery. Again, this is illustrations and not pictures, but if you are going into residency this would be a nice book to have.