Q&A: What exactly do students need to learn anatomy? Finely designed dissection videos!
Authors: Zhang Guiyun 
Published: May 2022

Learning human anatomy is challenging for medical students. With tremendous amount of anatomical content and limited time, students struggle to master the material and often get lost in the vast resources available. Faculty also strive to provide effective teaching approaches and create learning tools. Learning resources provided free to students at SKMC include textbooks, atlas, anatomy software, and a video‐atlas. However, previous studies have reported that only 2% of the students read the textbook and none of the resources provided received positive feedback from the majority of students. Frustration and stressfulness are common among students during their anatomy course. In order to identify what exactly students need to help reduce stress and improve learning, we established a close relationship and personal connection with many students in 2016‐2017. We generated anatomy learning tools in several different formats. Among these, a few of preliminary dissection videos received overall positive feedback from students. Beginning in 2017, we recorded a series of dissection review videos that are tailored to the integrated curriculum at SKMC. The videos covered the following body regions: back, thorax, abdomen, pelvis/perineum, upper/lower limbs, and neck/head. Class of 2022 was provided with these videos as supplement material. A survey was administrated to the class to collect feedback. 224 out of 268 students responded and the responding rate was 84%. 200 of 224 responses were complete and valid. 100% of the responding students watched the dissection videos. 98.5% strongly agreed and 1.5% agreed that these videos were helpful for their preparation for practical examinations. 47.5% strongly agreed, 40% agreed, 11.5% neutral and 1% disagreed that these videos were helpful for their preparation for the written examination. 93.5% strongly agreed, 5.5% agreed and 1% neutral that these videos were helpful for their overall understanding of the anatomy of particular body regions. 92% strongly agreed, 7.5% agreed and 0.5% neutral that these videos helped ease tension and stress before practical examinations. 99.5% responded yes and 0.5% said no, when asked “Would you like to see more dissection videos from Dr. Zhang for your future anatomy studies?” One concern from the faculty’s perspective was that students might use the videos as a substitute and skip cadaver lab dissection/review. In responding to this concern, 88.5% of the students indicated that they did not use the videos as a substitute for reviewing the actual cadavers in the lab. 11.5% responded “yes” but stated in their comments that the videos made their review of the cadaver more efficient (i.e., decreased the time they spent on the cadavers). Most of the students’ comments were passionate and emotional and expressed their appreciation to these videos.

In summary, among the many teaching/learning resources we provided to students over many years, the dissection videos received by far the most overwhelming positive feedback from our students. We are continuing this project to provide more videos that cover more detailed anatomical content.