Obesity, It's More Than Appearance: An Innovative Use of Anatomical Dissections to Teach About Obesity and Nutrition

Abstract

BackgroundThe growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the US has highlighted the need for future physicians to have formal training on the health impacts of obesity, and on how to advise their obese patients. Unfortunately, this training is lacking in most medical curriculums. As obesity is a complex, chronic condition with multiple pathophysiological aspects, students need an understanding of how basic principles of nutrition affect the body so they can take a more proactive role in talking to patients about what they eat, as well as how to change their diet and exercise habits to maintain an optimal weight. One barrier to achieving this goal this is getting students truly engaged in the subject and understanding its importance in overall health.MethodsWe developed visually impactful dissection videos, using obese donors, to highlight the pathophysiological effects of obesity on the human body. In particular the increased risk of hernia, enlarged greater omentum, accumulation of visceral fat, fatty liver disease, fatty pancreas, and effects of obesity on the heart. The collected photos and videos were imbedded into a SoftChalk module and used to engage students in a discussion on obesity before turning to discussions on how nutritional intervention can impact obesity.ResultsHere we present an outline of an innovative method used to engage students in the discussion of obesity. This Obesity and Nutrition module was based on a previous anatomy and nutrition session designed for second year medical students in the OUWB curriculum. As we strive to use relatively normal body weight donors in the gross anatomy course, this is the first time most students have observed the impact of significant obesity on donors. In addition, this innovative use of donors to teach about obesity allows us to accept donors that would otherwise be declined and honor the donors wish to be used to educate our future physicians.ConclusionsInitial comments from students are positive. We believe that by combining the use of obese donors and nutritional education, we can develop effective modules to teach about obesity and nutrition in multiple courses. Future research using this approach may help to identify and overcome barriers to improving health care for patients diagnosed with obesity.Support or Funding InformationOUWB Fellowship in Medical Education Award to Brent J. ThompsonThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.