Dissection Tutorial Video Series: a BlueLink Resource

Abstract

First year medical and dental students at the University of Michigan do not receive formal dissection training as part of their foundational human gross anatomy courses. As a result, many students do not know proper dissection techniques when they begin their dissection on the first day of lab, and often resort to learning by trial and error, or by observing faculty and teaching assistants as labs progress. In an attempt to help students feel more prepared and alleviate some of the anxiety associated with the first day in the gross labs, a series of short videos were produced to discuss and demonstrate the different aspects of dissection. The videos were provided as an adjunct to the first year medical and first year dental curricula on the BlueLink website, as well as on the BlueLink YouTube channel. Feedback data is collected from University of Michigan medical and dental students regarding the usefulness of this video series via surveys. In addition to University of Michigan students, these videos could be a useful resource to students at other institutions that also might not provide formal dissection instruction. As of November 2019, the views for each video ranges between 800 and 1900 views, with an average of 1300 views per video in the series.