Premium
Addressing the shortage of qualified staff in medical school anatomy laboratories and a proposed solution
Author(s) -
Homer Richard W,
Homer Heather,
Mortensen Nathan T,
Calderon Armando M,
Dowdle Blake,
Morton David A
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.22.1_supplement.768.1
Subject(s) - dissection (medical) , economic shortage , preparedness , medical education , gross anatomy , task (project management) , medicine , anatomy , psychology , engineering , management , systems engineering , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics) , economics
Due to a limited number of instructors, the University of Utah has found it difficult to supervise medical students during cadaver dissections. To address this problem, qualified graduate and undergraduate students were hired. During the fall of 2006 a “teaching assistant (TA) dissection course” was implemented enabling new TA's to review the anatomy and dissection sequence prior to teaching the students. The lessons learned during the fall of 2006 more efficiently prepared the TA dissection course during fall 2007. The important task of establishing a weekly mandatory meeting to cover the dissection sequence and identification of structures was continued. In addition, added responsibility was given to the TA coordinator in organizing and directing TA dissections. Under the direction of the anatomy course director, TA's practiced drawing and describing nervous pathways along with blood supply and lymphatic drainage on a dry erase board. TA's would perform the dissection while others reviewed atlases and texts with each group sharing pertinent anatomy and clinical correlations. At the conclusion of the course a questionnaire was administered to each TA regarding their preparedness and confidence with laboratory content as a result of this class. Each participant indicated a positive experience.