Teleanatomy: A Conceptual Framework for Anatomy Across Distance

For centuries, anatomy has been fundamentally grounded in physical proximity. Anatomical knowledge has traditionally been acquired through direct observation of the human body by dissection, surgery, physical examination, and medical imaging. Advances in imaging, three-dimensional modeling, telecommunication, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and extended reality have transformed how anatomical information is acquired and applied. Although remote anatomical practices already exist in education, imaging, consultation, and surgery, no unified anatomy-specific framework describes how structural information is acquired, represented, transmitted, interpreted, and applied when the anatomical source and the observer or user are spatially separated. We propose teleanatomy as a framework for this distributed setting. Five foundational pillars are identified: acquisition, representation, transmission, interpretation, and application, and three cross-cutting properties, fidelity, provenance, and latency, are proposed as determinants of whether anatomical information remains reliable and fit for purpose. Teleanatomy is not intended to replace digital anatomy, telemedicine, radiologic anatomy, or surgical robotics, but to define the anatomical layer shared by these increasingly remote practices.