Design principles for developing an efficient clinical anatomy course

Abstract

The exponential growth of medical knowledge presents a challenge for the medical school curriculum. Because anatomy is traditionally a long course, it is an attractive target to reduce course hours, yet designing courses that produce students with less understanding of human anatomy is not a viable option. Faced with the challenge of teaching more anatomy with less time, we set out to understand how students employ instructional media to learn anatomy inside and outside of the classroom. We developed a series of pilot programs to explore how students learn anatomy and, in particular, how they combine instructional technology with more traditional classroom and laboratory-based learning. We then integrated what we learned with principles of effective instruction to design a course that makes the most efficient use of students' in-class and out-of-class learning. Overall, we concluded that our new anatomy course needed to focus on transforming how medical students think, reason, and learn. We are currently testing the hypothesis that this novel approach will enhance the ability of students to recall and expand their base of anatomical knowledge throughout their medical school training and beyond.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lawrence J. Rizzolo

LAWRENCE RIZZOLO is Associate Professor in the Departments of Surgery and of Ophthalmology and Visual Science. He is the Director of Medical Studies for the Section of Anatomy and directs the course on Human Anatomy and Development. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from Duke University and postdoctoral training at Harvard University and NYU.

William B. Stewart

WILLIAM STEWART is Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, where he is Chief of the Section of Anatomy. He received his PhD in Anatomy from Emory University and postdoctoral training at Yale University.

Michael O’Brien

MICHAEL O’BRIEN is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Surgery. He received his MD and PhD degrees in Anatomy and Neuroscience from Bowman Gray School of Medicine and residency training in general surgery at Yale University.

Andrew Haims

ANDREW HAIMS is Assistant Professor of Radiology and Orthopedic Surgery. He received his MD from NYU School of Medicine. He did his residency in Diagnostic Radiology at Yale University and received additional training in Musculoskeletal Radiology at Thomas Jefferson University.

William Rando

WILLIAM RANDO is Director of the McDougal Graduate Teaching Center at Yale University. He received his PhD in education and social policy from Northwestern University. Dr. Rando is co-author of Learning from Students.

James Abrahams

JAMES ABRAHAMS is Professor of Diagnostic Radiology and Director of Medical Studies. He also directs the Neuroradiology Fellowship program. He received his MD degree from the Autonomus University of Guadalajara and did his radiology residency at Albany Medical Center. He did fellowships in neuroradiology at Albany Medical Center and Yale University.

Shane Dunne

SHANE DUNNE (who developed the Divisible Human software) is currently Vice President of Research and Development for Ophthalmic Technologies, Inc., a medical imaging device manufacturer based in Toronto, Canada. He received his PhD in Computer Science in 1995 from the University of Western Ontario.

Silas Wang

SILAS WANG received his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Harvard University and is a fifth year medical student.

Marcus Aden

MARCUS ADEN received his undergraduate degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. He has been programming HTML, JAVA script and Flash for 11 years.