Implementation & Evaluation of Anatomy Teaching Associate Program

Repeated attempts to establish an anatomy TA‐program at UABSOM in 2011 and 2012 using fourth‐year medical students have been unsuccessful due to low enrollment. We hypothesized that the root cause was too inflexible program scheduling for fourth year students' required activities. Methods We converted previously required two weeks of class time into 25 hours of “face time” – training for labs and teaching. Our TA's selected any 6 dissections to teach from 23 total occurring during the 10‐month span between August and May.TA's were co‐enrolled in the present course and their remaining requirements. Results We achieved full enrollment (24 TA's) in our first “pilot year.” 12 (50%) TA's completed voluntary survey evaluations. Importantly, 83.3% of TA's agreed or strongly agreed that flexibility of the TA program weighed into their decision to sign up. Surveys also divulged that the TA‐program was highly rated and mutually benefitted all involved parties, TA's, students taught and professors. Discussion/Significance Any course in a higher education setting suffering from low student participation due to curricular constraints may convert class time to “face time” and thereby make previously inaccessible educational opportunities available to students. Source of Research Support Dept. of Cell, Dev. and Int. Bio at the UABSOM *Ethics approval for project evaluation was obtained from the UAB Institutional Review Board (IRB, E131015008).