The additive effect of teaching undergraduate cardiac anatomy using cadavers and ultrasound echocardiography

Ultrasound and cadavers are both recognized teaching modalities for the delivery of cardiac anatomy to undergraduate medical students. This study considers the additive effect of the two teaching modalities. We previously reported no significant difference in cardiac anatomy knowledge when taught using either ultrasound echocardiography or cadaveric prosections, both modalities significantly increasing knowledge from baseline. This study considers the cross-over effect with the ultrasound group receiving anatomy teaching with cadavers and vice versa. The results of this study show a small increase in knowledge after experiencing two modalities, but this increase was not significant. Furthermore, the order in which students received their tuition also made no significant difference. These data suggests there is no additive effect of combining cadaveric prosections with ultrasound. This has implications for curriculum design. However, these findings do not consider the hidden learning and learning experiences students will receive by two vastly different teaching modalities (AU)

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The clinical conscientiousness index: a valid tool for exploring professionalism in the clinical undergraduate setting.

PURPOSE: The need to develop effective tools to measure professionalism continues to challenge medical educators; thus, as a follow-up to a recent examination of the "Conscientiousness Index" (CI, a novel measure of one facet of professionalism) in one setting with preclinical medical students, the authors aimed to investigate the validity of the CI as a proxy measure of professionalism in a different context and in the clinical phase of undergraduate medical education. METHOD: In academic year 2009-2010, the authors collected data similar to those collected for the original preclinical study. In an effort to create a Clinical Conscientiousness Index (CCI) score, they collected the following information on 124 third-year medical students completing their clinical rotations: attendance, timeliness of assessment submissions, and completion of rotation evaluations. Then, they compared the resultant CCI scores with faculty views on professionalism and with formal assessments of students' professionalism (i.e., their portfolios and objective structured clinical examinations [OSCEs]). RESULTS: The authors demonstrate significant correlations between CCI scores and faculty views on professionalism (rS = 0.3; P = .001), and between CCI scores and OSCE score (rS = 0.237; P = .008), but not between CCI scores and portfolio assessment (rS = 0.084; P = .354). The authors also present relationships between CCI scores and demographics. CONCLUSION: The CCI is a practical, valid proxy measure of professionalism, achieving good correlation with faculty views on professionalism and clinical competency examinations, but not portfolio assessment, in one clinical undergraduate setting.

Ultrasound and cadaveric prosections as methods for teaching cardiac anatomy: a comparative study.

This study compared the efficacy of two cardiac anatomy teaching modalities, ultrasound imaging and cadaveric prosections, for learning cardiac gross anatomy. One hundred and eight first-year medical students participated. Two weeks prior to the teaching intervention, students completed a pretest to assess their prior knowledge and to ensure that groups were equally randomized. Students, divided into pre-existing teaching groups, were assigned to one of two conditions; "cadaver" or "ultrasound." Those in the cadaver group received teaching on the heart using prosections, whereas the ultrasound group received teaching using live ultrasound images of the heart. Immediately after teaching, students sat a post-test. Both teaching modalities increased students' test scores by similar amounts but no significant difference was found between the two conditions, suggesting that both prosections and ultrasound are equally effective methods for teaching gross anatomy of the heart. Our data support the inclusion of either cadaveric teaching or living anatomy using ultrasound within the undergraduate anatomy curriculum, and further work is needed to compare the additive effect of the two modalities.