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Teaching regional anatomy to undergrads: Too much or more relevant preparation for postgraduate clinical education
Author(s) -
Spudich Elizabeth A,
Stanford Jennifer S
Publication year - 2013
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.27.1_supplement.lb21
Subject(s) - matriculation , graduation (instrument) , medical education , health professions , curriculum , pace , gross anatomy , medicine , psychology , anatomy , health care , pedagogy , engineering , mechanical engineering , geodesy , geography , economics , economic growth
Transitions from undergraduate to postgraduate studies in clinical/health professions (medicine, dental, etc.) can be stressful for several reasons; 1) postgraduate courses cover an amount of material for which they are unprepared, 2) anatomy is often the first course in these curricula and students are unfamiliar with the discipline as it is not required for matriculation to many programs, and 3) any previous exposure to anatomy likely used a systems based approach (i.e. anatomy and physiology), not the regionally‐based approach used in the health professions. As such, time in the first year of a clinical program may be wasted learning how to learn anatomy instead of being used to integrate anatomy with clinical perspectives. A 10 week course modeled after a med school anatomy course was offered to upper‐level undergraduates. To date 145 students planning careers in health professions have completed the course. End of course evaluations suggest students learned a lot but felt the pace/volume of the course was unrealistic. Following graduation students were surveyed on how the specific aspects of the course affected their transition into a health professions program. Preliminary data suggests students felt more confident and less stressed at matriculation into a clinical program after the course, and the course structure positively affected first year performance. Research supported by respective departments.