Improving the efficacy of cadaveric demonstrations for undergraduate anatomy education

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate if student number is a factor for the efficacy of cadaveric demonstrations in undergraduate anatomy education.Methods: For a female pelvic anatomy cadaveric demonstration lecture of second-year medical students at the anatomy laboratory of Hacettepe University School of Medicine, students were divided into 3 groups of 45, 30 and 15 participants. Each groupwas further divided into 3 subgroups. Thus, there were 3 groups with 15 participants, 3 subgroups with 10 participants and 3subgroups with 5 participants (3×15, 3×10, 3×5). After the cadaveric demonstration, the participants were asked if they hadseen the structure previously listed in the checklist or not.Results: The number of medical students who missed small anatomical structures such as the umbilical artery, ureter or uterineartery during the cadaveric demonstration significantly decreased as the number of students per cadaver table decreased(p0.05).Conclusion: As the number of students per cadaver table decreases, the number of overlooked or missed structures willdecrease.