- Joined
- Oct 17, 2016
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Every approach to anatomy instruction has benefits and drawbacks, and the decision for us to go virtual during Phase I was thought out at great length. Those of us who had traditional cadaver-based anatomy courses in medical school all seem to have a shared experience: on day one your group is given scalpels, forceps, a copy of Grant's, and you are bid good luck. Countless hours are subsequently expended foraging through fat for structures that range from well-preserved to unrecognizable mush. When all is said and done, you sit down to take Step 1 and the anatomy questions are clinical correlation rather than identification.
Our anatomy program is being developed with input from Dr. Richard Drake, using a modification of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM) model. Drake is the first author of Gray's Anatomy for Students, and CCLCM's students perform best in the nation on USMLE anatomy questions despite having the lowest number of educational hours dedicated to anatomy instruction. It's a rotating station approach where scheduled time in the anatomy lab is spent being taught rather than fiddling around with little direction.
One of the major benefits of virtual anatomy is that it is relatively easy to incorporate imaging, which is how most practicing physicians use anatomy on a day-to-day basis. There will be ample opportunity for future surgeons to practice hands-on skills, be it in an upper level cadaver dissection, in the clinical simulation center, in the OR, at the coroner's office, or in other settings. Those who are going into specialties where procedures are scarce or nonexistent can in turn focus their energy elsewhere.
We all missed you!
