Design,implementation, and evaluation of an innovative anatomy course

Starting in 2004, a medical school gross anatomy course faced with a 30% cut in hours went through an extensive redesign, which transformed a traditional dissection course into a course with a clinical focus, learning societies, and extensive on‐line learning support. Built into the redesign process was an extensive and ongoing assessment process, which included student focus groups, faculty development, surveys, and examinations. These assessments were used formatively, to enhance the course from year to year, and summatively, to determine how well the course was meeting the new learning objectives. The assessments from focus groups and faculty development prompted changes in support structures provided to students and the training and preparation of faculty. Survey results showed that, after student satisfaction declined the first year, satisfaction increased steadily through the fourth iteration as the course gained acceptance by students and faculty alike. There was a corresponding increase in the performance of students on course examinations. An additional examination given to students one and a half and three years after their anatomy course ended demonstrated the redesigned course's long‐term effectiveness for retaining anatomical knowledge and applying it to clinical cases. Compared to students who took the original course, students who took the shorter, more clinical course performed as well, or better, on each section of the examination. We attribute these positive results to the innovative course design and to the changes made based on our formative assessment program. Anat Sci Educ, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Effectiveness of a shortened, clinically engaged anatomy course for physician assistant students

There is little consensus among programs that train physician assistants (PAs) regarding how much time should be devoted to the study of anatomy, what should be included, or how it should be taught. Similar concerns led us to redesign anatomy for medical students and introduce clinically engaged anatomy, an approach designed in collaboration with clinical faculty. This approach presents anatomy entirely within the context of common clinical cases. This report examines whether clinically engaged anatomy could be adapted to the PA program, where students cover the basic sciences in half the time as medical students. We offered a modified version of clinically engaged anatomy to PA students in which time spent in self-directed learning activities was reduced relative to medical students. We compared their scores on an examination of long-term recall to students who took the previous course. Two classes who took clinically engaged anatomy, scored the same or significantly higher on every portion of the examination (P < 0.05). Students expressed high satisfaction with the course (Likert scale, 4.3-4.8/5 points). Compared to medical students who took clinically engaged anatomy, the data suggest that the tradeoff for reducing the time spent in self-directed learning was reduced skills in applying structure-function relationships and spatial reasoning to clinical problems. The data suggest clinically engaged anatomy can be effective in various educational settings, and can be readily adapted to clinical programs that vary in the depth that anatomy is covered. Nonetheless, careful assessments are needed to determine if the necessary tradeoffs are consistent with the goals of the profession.