Keeping Traditions? Perceptions Of Anatomy's Relevance To Clinical Training And Practice Across Successive Cohorts Of Graduating MD Students In A New Medical Program

Sixty‐eight medical students comprising three successive graduating classes completed a questionnaire as part of continuing quality improvement to the anatomy program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Southern Medical Program. Specifically, they were asked to declare an opinion as to whether the cadaver‐based anatomy education they had received during the first two years of studies, prepared them for further clinical training or was relevant to their clinical practice and/or to specific clinical specialties they encountered during clerkship. Respondents also indicated how confident they were that their current knowledge of anatomy was of the quality required of a medical graduate in Canada, as well as whether factors such as method of instruction or location of their campus (hence access to a diversity of resources) affected this perceived confidence. Majority of students felt that their anatomy education sufficiently prepared them for clinical clerkship. Most respondents also rated their knowledge of anatomy of a quality requisite of a Canadian medical graduate. Even though anatomy received near unanimous approval of respondents as being relevant to their clinical training and practice, individual comments as well as consistently low rankings for the utility of cadaveric dissection, give room for pause as to whether current modes of anatomy teaching at UBC and similar institutions, sufficiently capture the need for clinically‐relevant and effective anatomy education in a millennial generation. Support or Funding Information University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine, Southern Medical Program