The disciplines of anatomy and surgery are not dichotomous since one is dependent on the other. Traditionally, surgeons predominantly taught gross and clinical anatomy. In this review, we examine the context of how human anatomy is taught nowadays. In essence, we discovered that there are certain discernable trends consistently observable between…

The Anatomical Donations Program at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) has begun a multiphase project wherein interviews of donors will be recorded and later shown to medical students who participate in the anatomical dissection course. The first phase of this project included surveys of both current UMMS medical students and donors…

After Phnom Penh was liberated from the Khmer Rouge in 1979, health science education in Cambodia had to be completely rebuilt. In this article, the authors report the results of a teaching collaboration between the University of Melbourne (Australia), the International University (Cambodia), and the University of Health Sciences (Cambodia). The…

An increasing number of instructors are seeking to provide students with online anatomy resources. Many researchers have attempted to identify associations between resource use and student learning but few studies discuss the importance of usability testing in resource design and modification. Usability testing provides information about ease of…

Checklists have been widely used in the aviation industry ever since aircraft operations became more complex than any single pilot could reasonably remember. More recently, checklists have found their way into medicine, where cognitive function can be compromised by stress and fatigue. The use of checklists in medical education has rarely been…

Dilated canine hearts were used to teach undergraduate students internal and external cardiac anatomy. The specimens were dilated using hydrostatic pressure and then fixed using 5% formalin. These specimens provided the students with an alternative to prepackaged embalmed hearts and anatomical models for studying the external and internal cardiac…

Advances in computer and interface technologies have made it possible to create three-dimensional (3D) computerized models of anatomical structures for visualization, manipulation, and interaction in a virtual 3D environment. In the past few decades, a multitude of digital models have been developed to facilitate complex spatial learning of the…

The teaching of human anatomy has had to respond to significant changes in medical curricula, and it behooves anatomists to devise alternative strategies to effectively facilitate learning of the discipline by medical students in an integrated, applied, relevant, and contextual framework. In many medical schools, the lack of cadaver dissection as…

For more than 40 years, concern has been expressed over the attrition rate of students in Ph.D. programs in American universities. Although there are a number of significant factors at work, attrition of doctoral students in sciences such as anatomy may lead to a dearth of trained teaching anatomists as well as research scientists in the…

This usability study evaluated users' perceptions of a multimedia prototype for a new e-learning tool: Anatomy of the Central Nervous System: A Multimedia Course. Usability testing is a collection of formative evaluation methods that inform the developmental design of e-learning tools to maximize user acceptance, satisfaction, and adoption.…

Medical schools have reduced the time allotted to anatomy instruction. Consequently, schools engage students in more independent settings using information and communication technologies (ICT). There has been limited research in the use of video aids, a type of ICT, to enhance anatomy examination performance. The objective of this study is to…

This research is an effort to best utilize the interactive anatomical images for instructional purposes based on cognitive load theory. Three studies explored the differential effects of three computer-based instructional strategies that use anatomical cross-sections to enhance the interpretation of radiological images. These strategies include:…

Preadolescent students are interested in learning the structure and function of the human body. However, their teachers are not trained in this content. The purpose of this project was to expand a successful outreach effort in the health sciences for grade 7-12 teachers to include PreK-3 teachers. A "Healthy Hearts" workshop was offered to train…

To address the critical problem of inadequate physician supply in rural British Columbia, The University of British Columbia (UBC) launched an innovative, expanded and distributed medical program in 2004-2005. Medical students engage in a common curriculum at three geographically distinct sites across B.C.: in Vancouver, Prince George and…