112 - Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic and Alternating Dissection Groups on Course Delivery and Student Performance in a Cadaver-based Gross Anatomy Course

Poster Board Number: 112
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : Introduction and Objective: Rapid development of digital technologies and exponential knowledge growth over the last 2 decades have impacted anatomical dissection programs at most medical schools. Initially, about half of dissection laboratories (20/39) at our institution are split into 2 teams of 3 students, who either perform dissections or attend case discussion or ultrasonography lab. After non-dissecting activities, the second team joins the first team to finish dissection and participate in assessment. All 6 students are present during remaining labs. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this curriculum was modified to alternating dissection groups to decrease student contact time. As such, students generally dissected during only 1 of 4 labs, but they were encouraged to attend review sessions, especially if they did not dissect that anatomical region. Therefore, our study objective was to evaluate the importance of anatomical dissection and the impact of decreased hands-on dissection time on student
performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Materials and Methods: Anatomy practical exam and course grades for medical students in the classes of 2022-2026 were collected. Practical exam answers were analyzed based on whether the dissection objective came from a lab in which students participated in dissection. Objectives were categorized as muscle, bone, medical image, artery, vein, nerve, or structure. To evaluate the relationship between student performance on practical exams and participation in the dissection, t tests were used and repeated while stratifying by the 7 objective categories. Similarly, t tests evaluated the relationship between practical exam performance and whether COVID-19 protocols were used (spring practical class of 2023 and all 4 practicals for class of 2024).
Results: Overall, student grades increased a mean 0.5% after performing a dissection (P<.001). Students who participated in dissection performed better on identification of arteries (83.2% vs 82.6%), nerves (82.4% vs 81.5%), muscles (90.3% vs 89.8%), and medical images (91.3% vs 90.1%) than those who did not (all P<.001, significance adjusted to .007). Students performed worse on practical exams overall, decrease in mean scores of 2.8%, when COVID-19 protocols were used (P<.001). For the 5 exams administered with COVID-19 protocols, no difference in performance was found between those who participated in dissection and those who did not (P>.02, significance adjusted to .01).
Conclusion: Results supported the importance of cadaveric dissection for learning gross anatomy. Student proficiency improved not only in identifying anatomical structures that they dissected but also enhanced their understanding of three-dimensional anatomy leading to greater competency in interpreting medical images. Further, COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted student learning and performance on practical exams. However, alternating dissection groups effectively decreased student contact while still allowing a cadaveric dissection experience for
students. Review sessions were also an effective strategy to compensate for the lack of hands-on dissection.
Significance/Implication: Delivering anatomical curriculum in medical education during adverse circumstances, such as the pandemic, can be challenging, but it is important for medical schools to develop pedagogical methods that maintain cadaveric dissection opportunities that are crucial
for student learning.