64 - Advanced Human Anatomy Laboratory (ANAT 514): A Novel Project-based Human Anatomy Course at McGill University

Poster Board Number: 64
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : There is growing concern about the shortage of doctoral graduates who are qualified to teach in the anatomical sciences, despite increasing enrollment in health sciences programs. Much of this scarcity has resulted from the concomitant factors of decreasing visibility of ‘anatomy’ in departmental titles, a shift in research focus toward cellular mechanisms of disease, and an influx of clinician teachers, prompting some to call for additional programs and infrastructure to support increased numbers of anatomy teaching trainees. But who will these programs recruit?

One barrier to training an army of new anatomy educators is the lack of awareness surrounding teaching as a potential career path for new students. This is despite an increasing need for anatomy educators and a documented preference for hiring faculty candidates with anatomical sciences education doctorates for those positions over those with clinical and basic sciences degrees. Accordingly, it is important for students at the undergraduate level to be made aware of anatomy education as a viable career path prior to selecting a graduate program.

It is with this objective in mind that the Advanced Human Anatomy Laboratory (ANAT 514) course was created for students in their final year of the Anatomy and Cell Biology major at McGill University. Historically, the only anatomy-focused offering to this group was Systemic Human Anatomy (ANAT 214), which covered full-body visceral anatomy in the Fall semester. In 2019, a new course, Human Musculoskeletal System (ANAT 314), was added in the Winter semester, rounding out the students’ instruction on full-body gross anatomy. However, both courses were prosection-based and occurred early in the program, leaving students with a lack of experience in dissection and anatomy teaching while choosing the next steps in their careers during the pivotal final years of their degrees.

To address this gap, ANAT 514 was developed as a dissection-focused, project-based course that featured lectures on an array of topics delivered by several guest lecturers who use anatomy in creative ways within their careers. Students (n = 20) were placed into small groups and tasked with 1) creating cadaveric prosections for teaching and 2) developing educational resources that supplemented the regions highlighted by their teaching specimens. Laboratories were dedicated to self-directed dissection and educational resource creation. Lectures provided practical instruction on topics required for conducting their projects (e.g., photography, video editing, 3D printing, etc.) and exposed them to some unique ways that anatomy is used in various careers (e.g., medical illustration, gamification, yoga instruction, etc.). Formative assessments supported the planning and timely completion of the projects, and a final presentation and an oral laboratory examination were used to evaluate students’ project achievements and anatomical knowledge, respectively.

Overall, course performance was high (M = 92.2%) and the feedback from students on course evaluations was extremely positive (M = 100%), with many reporting having developed transferrable skills, increased anatomical knowledge, and a strengthened sense of identity within the field of anatomy. Project-based courses such as this may, therefore, offer a powerful medium for preparing new students and recruiting them into graduate programs in anatomical sciences education – a necessary step toward addressing the shortage of anatomy educators.