2021, Vol.34, No.1

Anatomy & Biological Anthropology 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.33

pISSN : 2671-5651 / eISSN : 2671-566X
https://journal.kci.go.kr/aba

Anatomy is being taught as a compulsory subject in various health care-related occupations. In anatomy, osteology is learning the names of bones and offers detailed structure of each bone and clinical knowledge. Therefore, understanding of bones is needed to learn the names of muscles, nerves, and blood vessels attached to each bone, and helps to remember the basic structure and function of human body. This study investigated the need for osteological learning and conducted a survey on medical students and doctors with experience in anatomy to identify the problems of osteological education. According to the result of conducting a survey on 186 people, doctors showed higher positive opinion on lectures, exams, and grades of osteology than medical students but did not show a statistically significant difference. Doctors showed higher positive opinions about osteological practice than medical students, and showed statistically significant difference (p=0.037). Senior teaching (41.8%) was selected as the biggest problem in osteological education today followed by a short lecture, lack model, lack of study hours, and examination. Also, students had little difficulty in learning chest, spine, and limbs but showed difficulty in learning pelvis especially the head and required a lot of learning time. It was identified that more time is needed for doctors than for medical students in every system and showed a significant difference. This study suggests the necessity of formal education for osteology education and that combining lecture on theory and practice can raise learning effect of anatomy in effective osteology education.

New didactic methods have been introduced for teaching gross anatomy and neuroanatomy, which include modern IT technology such as 3-dimensional (3D) printing and virtual (VR) or augmented reality (AR). These methods have been reported to be educationally effective. Despite several 3D or mnemonic devices used for teaching brainstem anatomy, this part of the brain remains difficult to teach and learn. The difficulty may be associated with the compact localization of the components, with many nuclei and tracts packed in a limited space, which are not easily observed by dissection. Cross sectioning and staining of the brainstem have presented obstacles at the authors’ institution, due to limited laboratory time and inconsistent staining results. To overcome these difficulties and improve students’ understanding of brainstem anatomy, we introduced a hands-on practice of modeling during the neuroanatomy course. Students were required to model the brainstem including the nuclei and nerves using three transparent plastic cups (for midbrain, pons, and medulla oblongata), colored clay, thin wire, and colored threads. The brainstem models made by students were evaluated by the teacher. The results of a feedback survey based on a five-point Likert scale showed positive effects of this method.

Neuroanatomy is essential for the undergraduate students of medical college to understand functional structures of neural system and present the mechanisms how disease and injury lead to the neurological impairment. In almost all medical colleges, neuroanatomy lab class is performed with cadaveric brain dissection within the anatomy laboratory. Recently, online lab lectures were adopted for the sectional neuroanatomy lab to secure sufficient lab class hours and due to COVID 19 pandemic situation. In this report, a survey analysis was performed for the proper application of flipped learning strategy to the neuroanatomy lab course. Medical college students of Dankook university were classified into two groups (online lab lecture group and face to face lab lecture group) and asked to complete anonymous survey in private. A large number of students had already experienced flipped leaning especially in face to face lab lecture group. The majority of students showed opinion of relevant proportion of sectional neuroanatomy in whole neuroanatomy lab course and the relevance of the time for preparing formative evaluations of each neuroanatomy lab class. Almost all students regarded picture materials for online lab lectures as useful in comparing with sectioned brain surfaces. On the opinions of necessities of flipped learning course in learner’s aspect, proportion of “necessary” was certainly higher in online lab lecture group although there was no statistical significance. Growing demands of flipped learning is likely to make a new paradigm of medical education even in the laboratory course of basic medical subjects. The results revealed not only the relevance of flipped learning strategy in sectional neuroanatomy lab, but also the necessity of regular feedback of needs in learner’s aspect to secure sufficient hours for both neuroanatomy lab practice and preparing for the formative evaluation.