** Student Scholarship Winner

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PERCEPTION OF ANATOMY TEACHING AND LEARNING IN A MULTIPROFESSIONAL CONTEXT.

Vishnumaya G¹, Ramnarayan K² and Shrimati Mayya³ ,¹Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, ²M.M.M.C., ³Manipal University, Manipal -576104,  Karnataka, INDIA

Purpose

There is an increasing concern among medical educationists regarding Conventional  Anatomy teaching as practiced by most traditional medical schools has limitations in meeting the educational needs of students.We carried out a survey to assess student perception of the way anatomy is taught and how it is assessed in a multiprofessional context. This study answers the question: are the students satisfied with the present way of Anatomy teaching under discipline based curriculum?

Methods

Printed questionnaires were used to survey a total of 245 undergraduate students of which 75 were medical, 78 dental and 92 from nursing. The questionnaire dealt with the overall assessment of the course. The answers were then statistically analyzed using a 5 point likert scale.

Results

The students of all the disciplines have rated that the time allocated for Anatomy teaching as insufficient. They also stated that the teaching pace is too fast; thus making the workload / assignments too heavy for the students more so for the dental and nursing students. All students have graded the practicals to be very useful.

Conclusion

The present study was undertaken to find out the merits and demerits of Anatomy teaching and learning under the present conventional system. The merits point out once again the importance of a clearly defined practical approach to learning Anatomy. The inadequacies like insufficient time allocated for course, fast teaching pace, heavy workload, make us realize that it’s high time the Anatomy Curriculum is revised for undergraduate level.