Early clinical exposure through innovative interactive clinical anatomy lectures.
BACKGROUND
Traditional lecture-based teaching of anatomy tends to focus on the discipline per se rather than relating it to clinical conditions. As a result, students often lose interest in the basic sciences. We hypothesized that a lecture format that encourages students to relate anatomy to case presentations might help them in appreciating clinical relevance. We therefore proposed to develop, implement and evaluate innovative interactive clinical anatomy lectures (ICALs) for first year medical students of our institution as a method to implement the 'early clinical exposure' teaching strategy being promoted by the Medical Council of India.


METHODS
The first year medical students (n=150) were divided into two groups by lottery: the study group (n=75) and the control group (n=75). The study group received nine ICALs along with traditional gross anatomy lectures (TGL) and dissection. The control group received only TGL along with dissection. A post-test in clinical anatomy was conducted for both groups. The responses of the study group on TGL and ICALs on their learning and understanding of the clinical conditions were collected using the nominal group technique.


CONCLUSIONS
It is feasible to introduce early clinical exposure within lectures even with 150 students. There was a statistically significant (p<0.001) difference in the mean post-test scores of the two groups, which shows that ICALs are effective in correlating anatomical and clinical information to students. The nominal group technique responses of the study group showed that they appreciated it as a better method of teaching and learning.
Department of Anatomy, Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Chikkarayapuram, Near Mangadu, Chennai 600069, Tamil Nadu, India, kalpanasriram1@gmail.com.
Kalpana
K
Ramachandran
P.S.G. FAIMER Regional Institute, P.S.G. Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Coimbatore, India.
Thomas V
TV
Chacko
Centre for Medical Education in Context (CenMEDIC) and Department of Education in Medicine, Open University, UK.
Janet
J
Grant
Department of Community Health Sciences, PAHS School of Medicine, Nepal.
Shital
S
Bhandary
D000715:Anatomy / Q000193:education*; D001290:Attitude; D002102:Cadaver; D003479:Curriculum; D004210:Dissection; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D011897:Random Allocation; D000066908:Simulation Training / Q000379:methods