Integration of Clinical Anatomy Labs in a Clinical Presentation‐based Curriculum: A Tool to Improve Long‐Term Retention of Anatomy

Abstract

In an active learning Clinical Presentation (CP) based curriculum, medical students spend most of their learning time in various activities like: discussions of CPs, clinical cases, flipped classrooms and self‐directed study. In light of a general inclination to lessen course hours, this has resulted in a significant decline of dissection time in human anatomy: a time‐honored basic science discipline. As a result there have been great concerns regarding traditional and modern approaches to teaching anatomy and its impact on student's knowledge of medical students which may affect their future competencies as physicians. In an attempt to improve long‐term retention of anatomy knowledge, California University of Science and Medicine, School of Medicine (CalMed‐SOM) has designed a blended curriculum that contains clinical anatomy, anatomical‐radiological correlations, anatomical characterizations of surgical procedures and ultra‐sonographic living anatomy labs. This approach in the teaching of anatomy teaching will allow anatomical principles to be appreciated and applied to the clinical concepts taught during the CPs and clinical cases of CalMed‐SOM's active learning curriculum. To achieve our goal, students will be divided into small groups, each of which will rotate through four different anatomy laboratory stations which will be integrated with the CP of that week and will address the gross anatomy, procedural anatomy, and ultra‐sonographic and radiologic components of the Clinical Anatomy Labs. Students will be given an online test before and after lab sessions of each course to assess the amount of knowledge gained. At the end of each semester, the student will again be assessed with the same pre and post exams administered during the previous courses in order to evaluate their retention of knowledge. In an attempt to explore Clinical Anatomy Lab experience of medical students toward the various methods of teaching anatomy we have constructed a questionnaire which will be administered at the end of each course. Data will be collected regarding student's experience, satisfaction and performance in each course. The results will be used as a guide to tune the curriculum and the teaching of Clinical Anatomy. We believe that this integrated, active approach will better prepare our students for their clinical encounters in the clerkship years.