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Testing knowledge of clinically‐relevant surface anatomy
Author(s) -
Hankin Mark,
Baptista Carlos A.C.,
Lane Richard D.,
Morse Dennis E.,
BennettClarke Carol A.
Publication year - 2010
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.24.1_supplement.829.5
Subject(s) - surface anatomy , subject (documents) , human anatomy , gross anatomy , dissection (medical) , anatomy , medicine , medical physics , physical exam , medical education , computer science , surgery , library science
A thorough knowledge of surface anatomy is essential for diagnosis and management of patients. For many students, “instruction” in this subject is limited to an introductory lecture. While surface anatomy is available for study on cadavers, dissection unavoidably removes skin making advanced study and learning difficult. Therefore, students’ knowledge of surface anatomy is rarely assessed on practical exams but instead measured in a limited way on written exams. METHODS This report describes the use of undissected cadavers in practical exams given to physician assistant students (N=34) to assess their knowledge of surface anatomy on written and practical exams. Four pairs of subject‐matched, multiple‐choice surface anatomy questions on three exams were used to assess the association between performance on the subject‐matched questions and exam scores. RESULTS Spearman non‐parametric analysis showed strong correlations (0.79≤ r≤ 0.88, p<0.001) between overall performance on written and practical exams. While there was no correlation between performance on subject‐matched questions for Exam 1, significant correlations were observed for Exam 2 (r=0.37 p=0.3) and Exam 3 (r=0.39, p=0.02). Performance on subject‐matched questions also correlated with overall performance for Exams 2 and 3, but only for practical surface anatomy questions in Exam 1. CONCLUSION This data suggests that it is possible to accurately assess clinically‐relevant surface anatomy on a practical exam. Since physical examination is an important clinical application of surface anatomy, it is essential that we have an accurate way to assess our students' ability to recognize essential surface landmarks.