Eng-Tat ANG1*, Jaya B.1, Satish R. L.1, Norman LIN2, James LEE2, Sean LEE2,
GAO Yujia2, Victor LOH3, and Benjamin GOH2
1Department of Anatomy, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLLSOM)
2Department of Surgery, YLLSOM
3Department of Family Medicine, YLLSOM
Ang, E-T, Jaya B., Satish R. L., Lin, N., Lee, J., Lee, S., Gao, Y., Loh, V., & Goh, B. (2023). Teaching surface anatomy by surgeons and anatomists [Lightning talk]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/teaching-surface-anatomy-by-surgeons-and-anatomists/
SUB-THEME
Interdisciplinarity and Education
KEYWORDS
Surface anatomy, surgery, collaboration, teaching
CATEGORY
Lightning Talks
WHAT PROBLEM WAS ADDRESSED?
Not knowing enough surface anatomy is challenging for the clinical students as they further their medical education. Despite efforts by the anatomists to sensitise preclinical students to this important skillset via the clinical applications of medical sciences (CAMS), the surgeons are reporting that there is still a gap. These medical students are not confident in locating important landmarks (e.g. pubic tubercle) and organs. They would also appear to be unprofessional in their general handling of patients. Is this the result of poor alignment of teaching objectives and nomenclatures? This has to be dealt with because it will lead to frustrations for both teachers and students.
WHAT WAS TRIED?
For the first time at the National University of Singapore (NUS), surgeons and anatomists decided to collaboratively teach surface anatomy to the Medical Year 3 (M3) students as they begin their surgical rotations at the National University Hospital (NUH) (NUS-IRB 2023-2). This is fundamentally different from the existing CAMS (NUS) and initiatives like body painting (Diaz & Woolley, 2021). Importantly, standardised patients (SP) were involved, and therefore the level of authenticity is heightened. Students were instructed to surface mark bony landmarks, organs (e.g. liver in the abdomen), and glands (e.g. thyroid in the neck) respectively. The students-to-teacher ratio was kept small (9:1) in order to facilitate more interactions. Four sessions each lasting 2-3 hours (with time allocated for practice) were rolled out between 2022-2023. Pre- and post- session quizzes to ascertain knowledge gain were done. Lastly, a survey was carried out to gauge the level of satisfaction with the interventions.
WHAT LESSONS WERE LEARNED?
The surface anatomy knowledge expected of the clinical students was not fulfilled by the CAMS in the pre-clinical years. Most notably, the nomenclatures used by anatomists were not properly aligned with that of the surgeons. Students were confused by these discrepancies e.g. myopectineal orifice in the groin. Overall, the students (n = 72) felt that the module was useful in clarifying these doubts, and boosted their confidence dealing with the SP. 100% of the participants rated the programme between 8-10/10 for effectiveness and gain of knowledge (pre-post-test) (p < 0.05). We also observed that while some surgeons like to defer the teachings to the anatomists, others prefer to take the lead. There were also considerable variations in teaching styles (e.g. humour). All things considered, with the learning objectives and nomenclatures standardised, the venture was much appreciated by the M3 students. The improved conversations between surgeons and anatomists made the learning of surface anatomy more constructive and meaningful for the students. However, this conclusion is limited by the fact that this was a mono-institutional research. Therefore, the idea needs to be expanded.
REFERENCE
Diaz, C. M., & Woolley, T. (2021). “Learning by doing”: a mixed-methods study to identify why body painting can be a powerful approach for teaching surface anatomy to health science students. Med Sci Educ, 31(6), 1875-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-021-01376-x
