Learning of musculoskeletal ligament stress testing in a gross anatomy laboratory

Human anatomy in physical therapy programs is a basic science course serving as a foundation for subsequent clinical courses. Integration of anatomy with a clinical emphasis throughout a curriculum provides opportunities for reinforcement of previously learned material. Considering the human cadaver laboratory as a fixed cost to our program, we sought opportunities to add value to the resource via vertical integration into a clinical skills course taught later in the curriculum. We designed an opportunity for second-year physical therapy students to revisit the human anatomy laboratory to study select clinical musculoskeletal tests and the associated anatomy in a clinically relevant context. Students performed select orthopedic ligament test on human cadavers, then incised specific structures and repeated the tests. Students were able to feel and visualize the function of pertinent anatomy associated with the clinical tests. Ninety-five percent of respondents reported that the ligament stress testing experience enhanced their understanding of orthopedic clinical tests with 91% reporting an enhanced understanding of anatomy related to specific clinical tests. Likewise, the experience was perceived as enjoyable and valuable with 86% of respondents reporting the experience as enjoyable and 100% responding the experience should continue as part of the curriculum.     

Surgeons as medical school educators: an untapped resource

Despite extensive experience teaching residents, surgeons are an untapped resource for educating medical students. We hypothesized that by involving surgeons as teachers earlier in the medical school curriculum, medical students' interest in surgery will increase and their opinions of surgeons will improve. Five programs designed to involve surgeons as educators in the medical school curriculum were implemented. The first program, started in 2008, introduced surgical faculty into the first-year medical student anatomy dissection laboratories. Other programs initiated in 2008 included: Surgical Clinical Correlates in Anatomy, which involved faculty teaching through cadaver surgery; Clinical Pathologic Conferences in Anatomy, a surgeon-led conference based on clinical cases; and a women's faculty-student mentorship program. Table Rounds, a surgeon-led anatomy review that used clinical scenarios to quiz students was begun in 2009. All five programs were successfully integrated into the medical school curriculum. While student opinion of surgeons as educators improved, there were no significant changes in student interest in surgery as a career nor change in performance on written examinations over the Anatomy content covered by the surgeons. Surgical faculty and trainees can be integrated into the medical school curriculum. Involving surgeons as educators earlier in the medical school curriculum may have longer term effects than could be observed in this study. At a minimum, the experience improved student opinion of surgeons as educators.     

Use of the one-minute preceptor as a teaching tool in the gross anatomy laboratory

The one-minute preceptor (OMP) is a time-efficient technique used for teaching in busy clinical settings. It consists of five microskills: (1) get a commitment from the student, (2) probe for supporting evidence, (3) reinforce what was done right, (4) correct errors and fill in omissions, and (5) teach a general rule. It can also be used to address structure-identification questions in gross anatomy laboratory small-group settings. The OMP is an active learner-centered teaching approach that prepares students for a style of learning that they need to master in clinical settings, provides novice anatomy teachers with an efficient and effective teaching strategy, and moves anatomy learning beyond mere name tagging to active knowledge construction.     

Resident perceptions of anatomy education: a survey of medical school alumni from two different anatomy curricula and multiple medical specialties

In 2004, the University of Michigan Medical School reduced its gross anatomy curriculum. To determine the effect of this reduction on resident perceptions of their clinical preparedness, we surveyed alumni that included residents from the original and new shortened curricula. A Likert-scale survey was sent to four classes of alumni. Respondents were compared in old curriculum (OC) and new curriculum (NC) groups, surgical specialty (SS) and nonsurgical specialty (NS) groups, and subgroups of SS and NS were compared for differences between OC and NC. Mean response scores were compared using independent samples T-tests. As a single population (n = 110), respondents felt their anatomy education prepared them well for residency, that a more robust anatomy curriculum would be helpful, that dissection was important to their residency preparation, and that a 4th year anatomy elective was effective in expanding their anatomy education and preparing them for residency. No significant difference existed between OC and NC groups, neither as a whole nor as SS and NS subgroups. The SS group felt dissection was more important to their residency preparation than the NS group (P = 0.001) and that a more robust anatomy curriculum would have better prepared them for residency (P = 0.001). Thirty percent of SS respondents who did not take a 4th year elective commented that they wish they had. Fourth year anatomy electives were highly valued by residents, and respondents felt that they should be offered to students as a way of revisiting anatomy following the 1st year of clinical training.     

The trend of body donation for education based on Korean social and religious culture

Until a century ago, Korean medicine was based mainly on Oriental philosophies and ideas. From a religious perspective, Chinese Confucianism was prevalent in Korea at that time. Since Confucianists believe that it is against one's filial duty to harm his or her body, given to them by their parents, most Koreans did not donate their bodies or organs for education in the past. However, by the end of the 20th century, a unique fusion of Western and Oriental medicines were produced on the Korean Peninsula, revolutionizing traditional perspectives on the human body, mortality, and the relationship of medical science to society. Koreans began to think about others' lives as well as their own by realizing the importance of donating one's organs and bodies for scientific purposes. Since then, the number of people donating their bodies to Korean medical and dental schools for the purpose of improving academic learning has increased dramatically. In response, Korean medical schools have begun to hold various types of funeral ceremonies to honor body donors. We have compared such ceremonies performed in Korea with those performed in the United States of America and Taiwan. These ceremonies are viewed as a suitable way to pay proper respect to the dead and to promote knowledge about body donation programs in Korea. Overall, the transition of religions and social ethics in Korea has greatly facilitated body bequeathal programs, benefiting both medical education and the Korean public health administration.     

Medical students' attitudes toward the anatomy dissection room in relation to personality

Assessment of the personalities of medical students could enable medical educators to formulate strategies for the best development of academic and clinical competencies. In this article, we focus on the experience of students in the anatomy dissecting room. While there have been many attempts to evaluate the emotional responses of medical students to human cadaveric dissection, there has been no investigation into how different personality traits affect the responses. The main hypothesis tested was that there is a relationship between personality traits and attitudes toward the dissection room. For the present study, a group of French medical students (n = 403; mean age 21.3 ± 1.6; 65.3% female) completed a "Big Five" personality inventory and a questionnaire to assess their attitudes in regard to human dissection. The findings are consistent with our hypothesis, in that we found a relationship between reporting anxiety and four of the "Big Five" dimensions (all except openness). The rated level of anxiety was positively correlated with negative affectivity, more strongly at the beginning than at the end of the course. There were significant gender differences in attitudes toward dissection. The findings are discussed in relation to the possibility of preparing students for the dissecting room experience and also in relation to the students' understanding of mortality issues.     

Team-based learning in anatomy: an efficient, effective, and economical strategy

Team-based learning (TBL) strategy is being adopted in medical education to implement interactive small group learning. We have modified classical TBL to fit our curricular needs and approach. Anatomy lectures were replaced with TBL that required preparation of assigned content specific discussion topics (in the text referred as "discussion topics"), an individual self-assessment quiz (IRAT), analysis of the discussion topics, and then the team retaking the same quiz (GRAT) for discussion and deeper learning. Embryology and clinical correlations were given as lectures. Unit examinations consisted of graded IRAT and GRAT. The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Subject Examination was the comprehensive final examination. To evaluate the effect of TBL on student performance we compared the departmental and NBME subject examination scores between the traditional and TBL curricula. We collected five years of data on student performance in TBL-based anatomy and lecture-based preclinical courses. Our results show that departmental and NBME subject examination scores for TBL-based anatomy were higher than those for lecture-based anatomy. We subsequently compared average NBME scores for anatomy with those in other preclinical courses that were lecture-based. Average NBME anatomy scores were significantly higher than those for all the lecture-based preclinical courses. Since the introduction of TBL in anatomy, student performance has progressively improved in the NBME subject examination. Students perceived TBL as a motivator to be a responsible team member and to contribute to collective learning by the team. Further, it reinforced self-directed learning and fostered an appreciation for peer respect. Interestingly, these perceptions were uniform irrespective of student course performance.     

The virtual anatomy laboratory: usability testing to improve an online learning resource for anatomy education

An increasing number of instructors are seeking to provide students with online anatomy resources. Many researchers have attempted to identify associations between resource use and student learning but few studies discuss the importance of usability testing in resource design and modification. Usability testing provides information about ease of use and resource flexibility and indicates navigational issues that contribute to extraneous cognitive load for the user. An example of usability testing for modification of an online anatomy resource called the "Virtual Lab" is presented. Usability testing was used to determine whether increased content would impair navigation through the interface. Subjects with varying levels of experience with anatomy content were recruited to assess efficiency and effectiveness (defined by usability standards) of the original resource and of the redesigned resource. Comparisons between usability evaluation of the original "Virtual Lab" (OVL) and of the redesigned "Virtual Lab" (RVL) revealed that subjects were better able to successfully complete tasks using the RVL than they were with the OVL. Results also demonstrated that subjects did not take significantly more time to successfully complete tasks with the RVL. Additionally, usability testing revealed that subjects were able to successfully complete tasks using the RVL regardless of whether they possessed prior experience with anatomy content or not. Results of this study suggest that the modified resource is more effective for users. The example presented here underscores the need for usability testing prior to resource implementation and whenever significant changes are made to a resource interface.     

师范院校《人体解剖生理学》实验教学改革探索

随着中学生物和师范院校生物课程改革的深入,传统《人体解剖生理学》实验教学模式已无法满足当前人才培养的需要。对《人体解剖生理学》实验教学在教学内容、教学方法、教学评价等方面进行改革,以便更好地培养既能胜任新世纪中学生物教学,又具有科研能力和创新精神的生物专业人才。     

Evaluation of usage of virtual microscopy for the study of histology in the medical,dental, and veterinary undergraduate programs of a UK University

This article describes the introduction of a virtual microscope (VM) that has allowed preclinical histology teaching to be fashioned to better suit the needs of approximately 900 undergraduate students per year studying medicine, dentistry, or veterinary science at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Features of the VM implementation include: (1) the facility for students and teachers to make annotations on the digital slides; (2) in‐house development of VM‐based quizzes that are used for both formative and summative assessments; (3) archiving of teaching materials generated each year, enabling students to access their personalized learning resources throughout their programs; and (4) retention of light microscopy capability alongside the VM. Student feedback on the VM is particularly positive about its ease of use, the value of the annotation tool, the quizzes, and the accessibility of all components off‐campus. Analysis of login data indicates considerable, although variable, use of the VM by students outside timetabled teaching. The median number of annual logins per student account for every course exceeded the number of timetabled histology classes for that course (1.6–3.5 times). The total number of annual student logins across all cohorts increased from approximately 9,000 in the year 2007–2008 to 22,000 in the year 2010–2011. The implementation of the VM has improved teaching and learning in practical classes within the histology laboratory and facilitated consolidation and revision of material outside the laboratory. Discussion is provided of some novel strategies that capitalize on the benefits of introducing a VM, as well as strategies adopted to overcome some potential challenges. Anat Sci Educ 7: 389–398. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.