Training Anatomical Educators: Teaching the Teachers

The paucity of qualified educators of the anatomical sciences is a problem in this country and the Vesalius teaching program was conceived at Boston University School of Medicine in order to provide formal training in curriculum design and teaching techniques for masters and doctoral students who would go on to teach biomedical sciences in medical and graduate schools. A key to successful educational reform is the development of the appropriate expertise of the instructors in both content and pedagogical areas. Traditionally neither basic science nor clinical instructors receive any formal training in pedagogy and yet they are expected to design, implement, teach and assess coherent curricula in the biomedical sciences. Each student who participates in the Vesalius Program completes a six‐credit certification that includes a class in effective teaching theory and follows this with actual mentored teaching in any of the anatomical sciences: gross anatomy, embryology, neuroanatomy, and histology. All students who have completed this program have received job offers immediately upon graduation. Furthermore, this training program has increased the quality and quantity of students applying to our doctoral program in Anatomy and Neurobiology. The Vesalius teacher training program produces anatomical content experts that are savvy educators, and it has strengthened our basic science research training program.