Abstract
BackgroundAnatomy education in US medical schools has seen numerous changes since the call for medical education reform in 2010. The purpose of this study was to survey US medical schools to assess recent trends in anatomy education, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on anatomy teaching, and future directions of medical school anatomy curricula.MethodsWe sent a 29-item survey to anatomy course directors of 145 AAMC-associated allopathic medical schools inquiring about their schools’ anatomy curricula. The survey contained objective discrete questions concerning the curricula changes preceding COVID-19 and those directly related to COVID-19. We also asked subjective and open-ended questions about the impact of COVID-19 and future directions of anatomy education.ResultsA total of 117/143 course directors (82%) completed the survey. Most schools (60%) reported a major change to their anatomy course within the past five years, including a decrease in total course time (20%), integration of anatomy into other courses (19%), and implementation of a “flipped classroom” (15%) teaching style. Due to COVID-19, there was a decrease in the fraction of course time dedicated to “hands-on” learning (p < 0.01) and teaching of clinical correlates (p = 0.02) and radiology (p < 0.01). Most course directors (79%) reported that COVID-19 had a negative impact on quality of learning due to decreased interactive or in-person (62%) learning and lack of dissection (44%). Incorporation of virtual-reality applications or 3D anatomy software (23%) and a decrease in cadaver dissection (13%) were the most common future anticipated changes.ConclusionThe constraints conferred by COVID-19 highlight the importance of maximizing interactive learning in the discipline of anatomy. In an era of social distancing and decreased emphasis on conventional anatomy dissection, adaptations of new technologies and teaching modalities may allow for traditional educational rigor to be sustained.
Highlights
Over the past decade, the landscape of United States (US) medical education has continuously changed following calls to adopt innovative, competency-based curricula to produce physicians better prepared to navigate our complex health care system [1]
Cadaveric dissection (n = 106; 90.6%) was the most popular form of “hands-on” interactive learning, with an average of 5.1 ± 1.41 students assigned to each cadaver
Cadaveric dissection remained the most popular mode of interactive learning among course directors, and our study found the proportion of schools using dissection (90%) prior to COVID-19 (2018–2019) to be similar to that reported by a similar study assessing the 2016–2017 year [9]
Summary
The landscape of United States (US) medical education has continuously changed following calls to adopt innovative, competency-based curricula to produce physicians better prepared to navigate our complex health care system [1]. The aforementioned changes may have entailed reduced formalized didactics, more case-based modules, and a transition to online, recorded lectures. Such modifications would be more difficult for subjects with a physical laboratory component, such as gross anatomy, which has conventionally relied on an in-person cadaveric dissection as a primary educational tool since the fifteenth century [4]. The purpose of this study was to survey US medical schools to assess recent trends in anatomy education, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on anatomy teaching, and future directions of medical school anatomy curricula
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