ABSTRACT

Teaching of anatomy during medical studies relies mainly on textbooks, lectures and dissection of cadavers. Thus, we decided to initiate radiological and clinical teaching modules, with the educational goal of enhancing the comprehension of anatomy of second-year medical students. The objectives of this study were to assess the feasibility of delivering radiological and clinical anatomy lectures to undergraduates and to explore the students’ perceptions of this promising teaching modality.

Questionnaires were distributed with four questions for each radiological and clinical lecture modalities to 943 volunteers in different classes at Gazi University, Faculty of medicine.

The ratio of students which agreed that radiological anatomy lectures were useful was 64.76% in the second class while this ratio was 79.91% in the fourth, 90.91% in the fifth, and 95.08% in the sixth class. The ratio for clinical anatomy lectures was 88.85%, 91.38%, 97.47%, and 94.08% respectively. The students considered that their understanding and perception of anatomy was improved with these two modalities. They also stated that these two modalities should be given in both preclinical and clinical classes.

The results of this study suggest the longitudinal integration of medical imaging into the anatomy teaching early in the curriculum may improve the students’ confidence in understanding imaging modalities and their relevance to clinical anatomy. These modalities can also benefit students by increasing their motivation, engagement, attention and memory.