Integration of Heart Models and Cadaveric Prosections in Cardiac Anatomy Lab
Authors: Antony Thompson , Ravikumaran Nair Rakesh 
Published: May 2022

Introduction

For doctors, the human body is the focus of investigation/intervention on a daily basis making the anatomy essential to safe medical practice.1 Most medical students agree with the statement that “I feel that working with cadaveric material is an important part of becoming a doctor”2. By integrating anatomical models into a prosection driven lab, we can move away from the clutter, discomfort, complexity of a cadaveric dissection, and clarify characteristics/functions of a structure that are not apparent in situ.3

Objectives

Incorporating heart models with prosected cadavers improves understanding of cardiac anatomy/pathology compared to only prosected cadavers.

Materials/Methods

1st year medical students at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine class of 2025 were placed into 16 groups of approximately 7‐10 students (n=137) and rotated through four 25‐minutes stations. One station was facilitated by a 4th‐year medical student teaching assistant (TA). During the station, one TA used the prosected cadaver for the presentation and another TA presented the same presentation on the heart model. Prior to or after the station, students rotated at the three 25‐minute stations that contained radiologic imaging of relevant anatomy, a self‐study station, and a procedural station relevant to the organ system (ex. central line station). After 6 days, students returned to anatomy lab and received two questions to assess their knowledge from the prior lab session. The 1st one asked students to describe the blood flow through the heart including all chambers/valves. Students received 1 point if they wrote R. atrium‐tricuspid valve‐R. ventricle‐pulmonic valve‐pulmonary trunk/pulmonary artery‐pulmonary veins‐L. atrium‐bicuspid valve‐L. ventricle‐aortic valve‐aorta and 0 points if any structure was missed. The 2nd one asked students to name the three branches of the aortic arch. The student received 1 point for brachiocephalic trunk, left common carotid, and left subclavian and 0 points if they missed any of the listed structures/did not provide full names for structures.

Results

For the question asking students to describe the blood flow through the heart, 47.45% (65/137) got 1 point and 52.55% (72/137) got 0 points. For the question asking students to name the three branches of the aortic arch, 65.69% (90/137) got 1 point and 34.31% (47/137) got 0 points. The main limitation to the question on blood flow through the heart was that no partial credit was given even if only 1 element of the answer was missing/incorrect which may explain the low percentage of those who got 1 point.

Conclusion

From the results we can determine that the use of heart models and cadaveric prosections improves understanding of cardiac anatomy/pathology compared to only prosected cadavers. The data shows more students were able to recall cardiac anatomy knowledge 6 days after the lab session using this teaching method.

Significance/Implication

Since anatomy is at the core of medical education, we believe that this novel integrated heart model and cadaveric prosections approach to the traditional anatomy curriculum will improve the baseline quality of anatomy education, improve cardiac anatomy recall, and serve as a model for the 1st‐year medical school curriculum.