ASSESSMENT OF ANATOMY EDUCATION IN A CHANGING MEDICAL CURRICULUM

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Anatomy has been considered the foundation of medical education for centuries. Consequently, the recent changes that have occurred in the medical education curriculum, concomitant with severe reduction in time allocated to the teaching of gross anatomy, has led to a series of debates on the decline in anatomy knowledge amongst undergraduate medical education (UME) students. As the anatomy course has become condensed in hours, it has necessitated adaptations towards a multimodal approach to teaching anatomy in just enough detail to prepare students for clinical practice. This is therefore an evaluation of the students' perception of the anatomy module and teaching methods in a medical curriculum that kicked off in the fall semester of 2018. Here, 128 first year medical students at Meharry Medical College will be surveyed on: 1) their perception of the role of anatomy in enhancing their understanding of clinical‐based lectures and skills; 2) the sufficiency of time allocated to anatomy in the curriculum; 3) their perception on the use of prosected cadavers in place of dissections; and 4) the enhancement of their gross anatomy laboratory practical experience following guidance by senior medical students acting as peer educators. This study is timely as it will ensure early feed‐back which will lead to prompt redress of perceived shortfalls, and a progressive tailoring of anatomy in the curricula and teaching in a way that future safety and clinical practice will not be compromised. The results will also serve as a point of reference to other medical schools as they consider and/or begin their transition to a new curriculum.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.