Abstract
-
Changes to medical education include a proliferation of medical
schools, shorter courses, shifts toward problem-based learning, and
large-scale medical knowledge expansion. Students also spend less
time on university campuses and more time at clinical teaching sites
1026 Abstracts
which are often non-specialized, regional, and remote from the parent
university. These changes leave little room for teaching anatomy
as a pure discipline. The aim of this research was to analyze contemporary
anatomy teaching and assessment in Australasian medical
schools. An online questionnaire/survey was competed by 19 Australian
and New Zealand medical schools, examining the time-allocation,
content, delivery and assessment of anatomy for 2008. The results
indicate that considerable variability exists within the current delivery
of anatomical education in Australasian medical schools. This is an indication
of the current climate in which basic sciences, including gross
anatomy, are taught in Australian and New Zealand medical schools.
There is no national curriculum for the teaching of gross anatomy;
the instruction and assessment of gross anatomy is entirely at the
discretion of each individual institution. Currently, without reliable
evidence, the degree of divergence between anatomy curricula at the
various Australasian medical schools is unclear. The questionnaire
survey findings have clarified this, and could be used to inform a
Royal Australian College of Surgeons policy or consensus statement
on anatomy teaching in our medical schools. A clinically integrated
approach to teaching anatomy has been developed to extend anatomy
teaching from a pure to a clinically integrated discipline, providing
a pedagogical benefit to anatomical and surgical educators.