At most institutions, education in the anatomical sciences has undergone several changes over the last decade. To identify the changes that have occurred in gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, neuroscience/neuroanatomy, and embryology courses, directors of these courses were asked to respond to a survey with questions pertaining to total course hours, hours of lecture, and hours of laboratory, whether the course was part of an integrated program or existed as a stand-alone course, and what type of laboratory experience occurred in the course. These data were compared to data obtained from a similar survey in 2002. Comparison between the data sets suggests several key points some of which include: decreased total hours in gross anatomy and neuroscience/neuroanatomy courses, increased use of virtual microscopy in microscopic anatomy courses, and decreased laboratory hours in embryology courses.

http://faculty.sdmiramar.edu/faculty/sdccd/kpetti/Bio232/Journal%20Articles/ChangeInAnatomyEducation.pdf

Medical Education in the Anatomical Sciences: The Winds of Change Continue to Blow.

It has become increasingly apparent that no single method for teaching anatomy is able to provide supremacy over another. In an effort to consolidate and enhance learning, a modernized anatomy curriculum was devised by attempting to take advantage of and maximize the benefits from different teaching methods. Both the more traditional approaches to anatomy teaching, as well as modern, innovative educational programs were embraced in a multimodal system implemented over a decade. In this effort, traditional teaching with lectures and dissection was supplemented with models, imaging, computer-assisted learning, problem-based learning through clinical cases, surface anatomy, clinical correlation lectures, peer teaching and team-based learning. Here, we review current thinking in medical education and present our transition from a passive, didactic, highly detailed anatomy course of the past, to a more interactive, as well as functionally and clinically relevant anatomy curriculum over the course of a decade.

Modernization of an anatomy class: From conceptualization to implementation. A case for integrated multimodal-multidisciplinary teaching.

A central tenet of Flexner's report was the fundamental role of science in medical education. Today, there is tension between the time needed to teach an ever-expanding knowledge base in science and the time needed for increased instruction in clinical application and in the behavioral, ethical, and managerial knowledge and skills needed to prepare for clinical experiences. One result has been at least a perceived reduction in time and focus on the foundational sciences. In this context, the International Association of Medical Science Educators initiated a study to address the role and value of the basic sciences in medical education by seeking perspectives from various groups of medical educators to five questions: (1) What are the sciences that constitute the foundation for medical practice? (2) What is the value and role of the foundational sciences in medical education? (3) When and how should these foundational sciences be incorporated into the medical education curriculum? (4) What sciences should be prerequisite to entering the undergraduate medical curriculum? (5) What are examples of the best practices for incorporating the foundational sciences into the medical education curriculum? The results suggest a broad group of experts believes that an understanding of basic science content remains essential to clinical practice and that teaching should be accomplished across the entire undergraduate medical education experience and integrated with clinical applications. Learning the sciences also plays a foundational role in developing discipline and rigor in learners' thinking skills, including logical reasoning, critical appraisal, problem solving, decision making, and creativity.

Flexner revisited: the role and value of the basic sciences in medical education.

Background: Recent efforts to identify the essential skills and competencies required for medical practice have resulted in an expansion of the educational outcomes for which medical schools are accountable. Teachers in the preclinical years, formerly focused on the transmission of biomedical principles and factual information, are now charged with presenting discipline-specific concepts with an emphasis on clinical relevance while advancing active learning, critical thinking, communication skills, and other professional competencies. Problem-based learning has been widely introduced to support these educational goals but other, less resource-intensive, discussion methodologies have not been extensively explored.Aim: To examine the feasibility of case-method teaching (CMT) during the preclinical curricula to integrate basic science concepts in the management of clinical problems.Methods: CMT sessions were conducted with students during the first- and second-year of hybrid curricula at two US medical schoo...

Case method teaching: An effective approach to integrate the basic and clinical sciences in the preclinical medical curriculum

Background: Knowledge and understanding of basic biomedical sciences remain essential to medical practice, particularly when faced with the continual advancement of diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. Evidence suggests, however, that retention tends to atrophy across the span of an average medical course and into the early postgraduate years, as preoccupation with clinical medicine predominates. We postulated that perceived relevance demonstrated through applicability to clinical situations may assist in retention of basic science knowledge. Methods: To test this hypothesis in our own medical student cohort, we administered a paper-based 50 MCQ assessment to a sample of students from Years 2 through 5. Covariates pertaining to demographics, prior educational experience, and the perceived clinical relevance of each question were also collected. Results: A total of 232 students (Years 2–5, response rate 50%) undertook the assessment task. This sample had comparable demographic and performance characteristics to the whole medical school cohort. In general, discipline-specific and overall scores were better for students in the latter years of the course compared to those in Year 2; male students and domestic students tended to perform better than their respective counterparts in certain disciplines. In the clinical years, perceived clinical relevance was significantly and positively correlated with item performance. Conclusions: This study suggests that perceived clinical relevance is a contributing factor to the retention of basic science knowledge and behoves curriculum planners to make clinical relevance a more explicit component of applied science teaching throughout the medical course.

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Retention of knowledge and perceived relevance of basic sciences in an integrated case-based learning (CBL) curriculum

Yu Ling, David B. Swanson, Kathy Holtzman, and S. Deniz BucakAbstractBackgroundStudies of retention of basic scienceinformation have commonlydemonstrated a knowledge decline asstudents progress through medicaleducation. This study examined itemcharacteristics influencing patterns ofretention.MethodA large content and statisticallyrepresentative sample of basic scienceitems from 2004–2005 forms of UnitedStates Medical Licensing Examination(USMLE) Step 1 was included in unscoredsections of 2004–2005 USMLE Step 2Clinical Knowledge (CK) test forms, andthe performance of 15,000 first-timeexaminees from U.S. and Canadianschools was analyzed to identify itemcharacteristics affecting retention.ResultsAcross the 502 study items, the meanitem difficulty on Step 1 was 76.1%; onStep 2 CK, this value declined to 69.7%.Performance declines were largest inBiochemistry (17.5%) and Microbiology(12.6%). Improvement was onlyobserved for Behavioral Sciences items(8.7%).ConclusionsShifts in examinee performance in thisstudy were similar to those observed inprevious research, although themagnitude of the overall decline wassomewhat larger.

Yu Ling

Papers

Retention of basic science information by senior medical students.