63 - The Story of a Diener Who Now Contributes Directly in Medical Education

Poster Board Number: 63
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Abstract Body : Problems with retaining high quality anatomy teaching faculty may arise due to transfers, retirements, and institutional budgetary constraints affecting the quality and delivery of medical education in the laboratory. One solution is to search internally and begin training dieners to the level of proficiency expected of a Teaching Assistant. Under this plan, dieners are taught the art of human dissection through close and personal direction by anatomy instructors. We report on Noel Caceres (NC), one of the dieners of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. He began performing simple dissections of the hands and arms and brought those prosected materials into the lab for instructors to present. NC progressed over time to the more difficult dissections including the laminectomy, prevertebral reflection, and brachial plexus prosections, now performing the “show and tell” to students with an instructor's supervision. Eventually, NC was tasked with monitoring student dissections to assess their progress and would direct faculty attention toward any table experiencing gaps in understanding or difficulty in completing their work. Most recently, NC began fulfilling the function of an instructor over this past summer anatomy course for the School of Health Professions where he was assigned a group of tables to cover. NC continued in the Fall of 2022 College of Medicine course where he was now able to cover a section with a faculty member for musculoskeletal anatomy. In both courses, evaluations recognized NC's abilities as adequate for a full fledged instructor. Results from student evaluations showed that NC performed as well as other experienced anatomy faculty with some comments praising NC's assistance and even crediting him for “saving them” in the anatomy lab. Additionally, NC's minority racial and ethnic background did not go unnoticed by the most diverse student bodies in the country and may have contributed to students’ trust and receptiveness. Our experience with NC supports the use of a larger pool of potential anatomy instructors when extenuating circumstances prevent the recruitment of and adequate number of fulltime teaching faculty.