Outcomes of a rotational dissection system in gross anatomy (721.19)

Abstract

At UT-Houston, we use a rotational dissection system to improve coordination between Gross Anatomy and Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM), in which first-year medical students learn physical examination skills focused on the region they are dissecting. Six students are assigned to each cadaver and divided into two teams. For each laboratory, one team is assigned to dissect and the other to attend ICM and study independently. For the next laboratory, the assignments are reversed, and the team that dissected spends 30 minutes teaching the other team. The students are given three traditional practical examinations with questions drawn equally from each laboratory and three course evaluations. In 2012, there were no significant differences in overall performance between the two teams. To determine whether the students did better at identifying structures they had dissected than those they had not, we used a mixed effect model with repeated measures, with each student serving as his or her own control. Results from all three exams were combined and expressed as % correct ± SD. For dissected structures, the mean was 80.0 ± 13.0, and for undissected structures, it was 78.3 ± 14. The difference was small, but statistically significant (p = 0.0007). This validated the concerns expressed by some students, but 91-96% of the students agreed that learning Gross Anatomy helped them understand the physical exam exercises in ICM.