Are Clerks Ready For Clerkship? Third Year Medical Students' Anatomical Science Knowledge vs. Clerkship Director Expectations
Authors: Norris Madeleine E. , Rogers Kem A. , Martin Charys M. 
Published: June 2021

Introduction

Competency‐based medical education (CBME) has been mandated across Canada for residency programs, encouraging undergraduate medical education (UME) programs to adopt this model. Schulich is undergoing a curriculum renewal to implement CBME at the UME level; however, there is limited research on how to effectively integrate anatomical sciences into a CBME model. Further, the anatomical concepts taught, and pedagogical methods employed, varies widely across curricula. Currently at Schulich, the anatomical science knowledge that clerkship directors expect students to learn prior to clerkship, and how much anatomical science knowledge current students retain, is unclear. By determining the effectiveness of the current anatomical science curriculum, we can inform the design and delivery of anatomical sciences into the CBME model. Thus, the specific aims of this research are to: (1) determine which anatomical science concepts are necessary for clerkship, and (2) assess third‐year medical students' anatomical science knowledge retention prior to and at the completion of each clerkship rotation. It was hypothesized that (1) paediatrics clerkship directors would deem embryology more important, compared to clerkship directors for surgery, where gross anatomy would take precedence. Furthermore, (2) third‐year medical students would score low on the pre‐test, due to limited knowledge retention after completing pre‐clerkship, and score higher on the post‐test as a result of the learning that takes place during clerkship.

Methods

(1) Questionnaires were created and used to guide interviews with all UME clerkship directors to determine which anatomical science concepts are thought to be necessary for each clerkship rotation. Interviews were transcribed and coded according to anatomical science themes mentioned. (2) Using information from Aim 1, a multiple choice assessment was created for each rotation to measure students' anatomical knowledge prior to and at the completion of each clerkship rotation.

Results

Embryology was the most prevalent anatomical science theme, and histology was the least. When analyzing each rotation, embryology was most prevalent for surgery, paeds, and family med., while imaging, neuroanatomy, and gross anatomy took precedence for internal med., psychiatry, and OB/GYN, respectively. Preliminary assessment results for four rotations reveal that students entering OB/GYN, family med., and psychiatry rotations achieved an average passing grade (>60%) on the pre‐test, while students entering paeds did not. When comparing the pre‐ and post‐tests, there was a significant improvement for students completing the paeds rotation (p=.009, d=.95).

Conclusion

Embryology being the most prevalent theme in surgery, paeds, and family med., and second most frequent in OB/GYN, suggests that these specialties rely on knowledge of normal development. Preliminary assessment data indicated that even though students entering paeds did not achieve an average passing grade on the pre‐test, which could be due to the challenging embryological concepts, this group of students displayed significant improvement on the post‐test, suggesting that learning of embryological concepts occurs during the rotation. The concepts deemed necessary by clerkship directors will be mapped to where and how they are taught within the current curriculum, which will elucidate curricular strengths and weaknesses, and help guide the curriculum reform.

Support or Funding Information

Ontario Graduate Scholarship

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.