Attainments during the COVID-19: a comparative survey study on ideal anatomy education from the students' perspective.

PURPOSE: Anatomy, one of the cornerstone branches of medical education, is one of the rare areas, where the traditional method remains the most efficient education method despite technological developments. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it impossible for the traditional method to continue and has enabled the integration of different distance learning methods into anatomy education. The aim of our study is to perform comparative evaluation of three education methods (traditional, asynchronous online, synchronous online) from the students' perspective. METHODS: In our study, a questionnaire form was sent to Eskisehir Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine students (n = 168) via Google forms. The students were asked to rank the anatomy education types from the most appropriate to the least appropriate in the proposals. The questionnaire consisted of multiple choice and open-ended questions in addition to 15 proposals questioning demographic information, student autonomy, efficiency, and preference. RESULTS: According to the results obtained, the students stated that the most efficient method (in terms of both theoretical "50%" and practical "55.4%") is the traditional method. In addition, when it comes to preference, students who preferred one of the distance online education types (asynchronous or synchronous) for theoretical anatomy constituted the majority (59.5%). The traditional method was rated as the least appropriate in terms of accessing course resources (42.3%). CONCLUSIONS: According to our study, while face-to-face education is still indispensable for the practical part of the ideal anatomy education, the theoretical part can be carried out remotely by strengthening it with some activities.

A survey study on distance anatomy education: challenges unique to anatomy.

PURPOSE: Traditional anatomy education (TAE) is based on teaching by seeing and touching cadavers/plastic materials that enable three-dimensional thinking, but there was no opportunity like this in distance anatomy education (DAE). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many trainings planned face-to-face were carried out remotely. In this study, our aim is to evaluate students' views on the efficiency of DAE, and to increase the efficiency of DAE in the future. METHODS: The questionnaire used in the study was applied to the first grade students in the Faculty of Medicine, at the Eskisehir Osmangazi University, in 2019-2020. 239 students completed the survey. The questionnaire consisted of the demographic information, that was obtained with voluntary consent, and sections containing suggestions on DAE, and its comparison with distance education of other basic medical science courses. The survey was prepared as a Likert scale (with 1 = totally disagree to 5 = totally agree), on Google forms and sent to the students online. RESULTS: 82.4% of the students marked "totally disagree" or "disagree" for the statement of "DAE is more efficient than TAE". The total percentage of students who marked "totally disagree" or "disagree" for the statement of "I was satisfied with the theoretical education in DAE" was 58.6%, but when it came to practical education the percentage raised to 79.9%. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results the efficiency of DAE, especially in terms of practice lessons, was found to be lower than TAE. To make DAE a powerful alternative to TAE, future studies should aim to develop a new syllabus for DAE.