Gray’s Anatomy: Grey area for medical students!

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDDec 13 2010

In a new study researchers have found that Australian medical students are struggling to name important body parts. They found that only nine of the 26 students could answer half of 20 questions correctly. Some (nearly a quarter) answers were “of concern” indicating a perfunctory knowledge of human anatomy.

Authors write that students made no attempt to identify major anatomical structures, wrongly identified them or named non-existent parts of the anatomy. For example structures missed by many included sciatic nerve and the abdominal aorta in partially dissected specimens. Surprisingly all participants were considering surgery as an option - a subject that requires good knowledge of anatomy.

Following the test the students were given a refresher course spanning seven weeks after which their performance improved. The course was very popular among students. According to lead author Professor George Ramsey-Stewart, professor of surgical anatomy at the University of Sydney, this trend reflects the decline in the anatomy taught in medical schools. He added that Anatomy is the basic component of medical education. He added that a change in curriculum introduced by the University of Sydney in 2007 trebled anatomy teaching hours but these students had completed anatomy studying by then.

The findings have been published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Doctor and researcher Steven Craig has said in his paper this March that teaching hours for anatomy varied from as few as 56 hours in one medical school to 560 hours. He feels improvements in anatomy teaching to date were mostly “a patch-up job”. He said, “These sorts of (voluntary dissection) courses are fantastic - for the students who get to do them… But if they can only accept 30 of the 250 students (it needs expanding).”

Australian Medical Students Association president Robert Marshall rejected a call for change in curriculum saying such studies ignored the fact that much anatomy tuition was incorporated into other activities.