Question: Anatomy Tests

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raptor5

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After reading many posts, I understand that most exams in Med School are multiple choice. What about Anatomy Exams? Surely not multiple choice. Are cadevers laid out and pins identifying structures to be named. Is a key provided or must you come up with everything off the top of your head. Just curious. Thanks.

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Our tests were comprised of two components, test days were LONG. Had histo/embryo combined with anatomy.

Multiple choice written portion

Practical lab portion: cadavers, films, x-sectionals, slides, all in the "write in answer on blank line" format. No key.
 
At PCOM, your anatomy (SPOM - Structural Principles of Osteopathic Medicine) will consist of 2 parts - a multiple choice written exam, and a lab practical.

In the lab practical, a pin or tag is placed on a nerve, artery/vein, muscle, a structure of a bone, a hole, etc.
You have 1 minute to write down what you think it is.
Then a buzzer goes off, and you go to the next station. Just like what VentdependenT said.

SPOM (at least for the class of 2007) consisted of Gross Anatomy, Radiology, Histology/Cell Biology, and Embryology. So the test will cover all those topics. There is a seperate Histology practical (midterm and final).
 
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At UHS (soon, KCUMB) we have an integrative systems based approach. Our anatomy questions are mixed in with the rest on our section quizzes and finals. As for anatomy practicals, we have 3 in the first year. The first covers the musculoskeletal system, second is Cardiovascular and respiratory (ie the chest), and the third is GI/Urogenital. Second year students learn the neuroanatomy and head/neck anatomy. Our anatomy practicals consist of fill in the blank pinned structures.
 
Your decisions from now until you graduate from medical school will consist of 4 choices, of which you will choose the "best" one.

Multiple choice is the WORST way to evaluate knowledge and learning, but it is pretty much the only way it's done in medical education, even anatomy.
 
Anatomy Exams at UNE:

There are two portions:
The written is multiple choice.
The lab part is divided in to two sections. The larger portion is the ID or a question secondary to the ID of a pined structure or marked image (the pined muscle is innervated by what nerve). Second is the ?live anatomy? poriton; this is usually a week before the test and you are asked to find various structures on your partner.
 
Question answered by group_theory. Thanks. Should have specified PCOM, but thanks to all.
 
at osu we have essay questions for the written and have to dissect a fresh cadaver to netter quality in under an hour. :cool:

nah, it's the same as everywhere else-- multiple choice written, then a lab portion with a pin and a minute or so to ID. :)

(of course, this was almost 4 years ago, so things may have changed since then)
 
Deno said:
Anatomy Exams at UNE:

There are two portions:
The written is multiple choice.
The lab part is divided in to two sections. The larger portion is the ID or a question secondary to the ID of a pined structure or marked image (the pined muscle is innervated by what nerve). Second is the ?live anatomy? poriton; this is usually a week before the test and you are asked to find various structures on your partner.

More on this...
Anatomy at UNECOM is a 10 hour course that consumes your life from August 1st to November 3rd. It is split into 4 sections: upper limb, lower limb, head and neck, and TAPP (thorax, abdomen, pelvis and perenium). There are no proscetions: you disect everything from the eye muscles to the teeny muscle that abducts your little toe (what is that called again?).
The written section of our anatomy exams here at UNECOM is mostly multiple choice, with occasional sections of fill in the blank, label the baboon shoulder (not kidding), and complete the cranial nerve table, depending on what professor writes the test.

Live anatomy (with a partner, and an anatomy fellow asking stuff like: 'show me where the ____ vein crosses the wrist, where is the prominence of X vertabrae) is something like 10% of your lab grade for each section of the course.

The remainder of the lab practical is just like what everyone else described: pins, tags, etc on cadavers, cross-sections of stuff (super hard), dots of silly putty on x-rays, maybe a bone poined out with a 'what muscle attaches here?" question. You do have unlimited time at each station, basically we wander around looking confused for an hour and a half, eventually all stuck on the same 5 tags for the last 10 minutes, and then they kick us out and send in the other half of the class to do the same. The professors and fellows get very creative with questions, once this year they put a bone in a bag and stuck it in a box so we had to reach in and feel the bone and then write down what it was.
Fortunately, histo and embryo are separate classes, altough the professors would overlap occasionally. A good experience, although a bit daunting at first, and as you can see I've already forgotten a lot...but I think I learned more than I've forgotten. I actually miss anatomy. :'(
 
Did you just say you had UNLIMITED time at each station!?! That's so not fair! We had one minute in which to do all of the following: read a multiple choice question (quite a few 2nd order with longer stems than just "what is this?"), ID the structure/Xray/model/whatever (usually dissected cadavers and not at all easy), and bubble in the answer on a scantron. That's ONE, as in UNO (1) minute!

:(
 
yes. they fill the whole lab up with about 50 tgs, and then they let us loose for an hour and a half, but they try to keep it so that there are never more than 2-3 people at each station at a time. Apparently they used to do it timed, but it makes some people go nuts, which we did experience in histology, where we had 90 seconds at some each question. 90 seconds to sit there and cry over the microscope...
 
Hey, just a quick comment on the comment about the timed tests making "people go nuts."

On the PCOM anatomy practicals, the 1 minute time limit itself didn't drive me nuts (I found that I usually had enough time), but it was that loud buzzer that would make you cringe at one-minute intervals for 30-60 minutes straight. I swear that buzzer had the meanest personality. Every time it buzzed it was really saying "You're WRONNNNNG!!!,"...."TRY AGAIN!!!"...."STUPID!!!". I hated that buzzer.
 
Homunculus said:
at osu we have essay questions for the written and have to dissect a fresh cadaver to netter quality in under an hour. :cool:

nah, it's the same as everywhere else-- multiple choice written, then a lab portion with a pin and a minute or so to ID. :)

(of course, this was almost 4 years ago, so things may have changed since then)


nothing has changed.
 
from KCOM:

we have AFFOM (anatomical and functional foundations of osteopathic medicine). with that course we are tested on anatomy, OMM and our clinical course all on the same test. this is set up so that it seems more like boards i guess. all i know is that it's hard to prepare for three exams at one time!!

all of our exams are multiple choice (since boards are multiple choice) and are case-based. for example, a man comes into the ER after sustaining a stab wound at intercostal space 4. if the stab wound penetrated just inferior to the superior rib, what is the structure most likely damaged first? (i'm a terrible question writer, but that's sort of how they go...)

anyway... what actually has happened for the most part with my class is that OMM gets sort of left behind because we all freak out about anatomy.

as the quarter progresses we have anatomy ID quizzes in lab which are just fill-in-the-blank. there are 5 questions, 4 are ID and 1 is a functional question. (my last one was "what artery passes in the optic foramen?")

at the end of the quarter we have a lab ID test with about 40 pinned structures that we move around the room and identify. it is fill-in-the-blank as well... we only have about 30 seconds for each station (it doesn't really take that long though.

the other thing to realize about med school and the hardest thing for me to learn is that the profs here are NOT trying to trick you. in undergrad i had a lot of them who enjoyed watching students squirm. the purpose in med school is to make sure you have the information necessary to not kill anyone!!
 
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