The logistics of facilitating a dissection based anatomy curriculum in a distributed medical program

Abstract

When the University of British Columbia (UBC) medical school began a distributed model for medical undergraduate education in 2004, the delivery of gross anatomy teaching needed to adapt to these new circumstances. The pedagogical decision to continue with a dissection – based anatomy curriculum, supplemented with selected prosections was made. Core gross anatomy teaching was front‐loaded into the curriculum during the first term when all students are based at the Vancouver site. Thereafter, all cadaveric material is shipped to the satellite sites so that students can continue with their anatomy education remotely. As the Body Donation Program at UBC's Vancouver campus is the only program of its kind in British Columbia, all cadavers for the distributed program are processed at UBC. The distributed medical education program has been operational for five years, and while successful, there have been some logistical and operational challenges: The acquisition of cadaveric material. The complexities of tracking and monitoring the anatomical material between all three sites. The processing and maintenance of anatomical material. The set up and monitoring of technical audio‐visual (AV) equipment in the lab.