Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic substantially undermined medical education and healthcare systems. Owing to the pandemic in South Korea, most medical schools needed to be flexible when conducting online and offline classes, but the guidelines did not reflect the specificity of medical schools. This study described the impact of modified anatomy education schedules at the Seoul National University College of Medicine (SNUCM) on students’ academic performance and satisfaction. Methods Anatomy education in SNUCM is divided into three regional units (the upper and lower limbs, trunk, and head and neck). Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule was mixed with simultaneous and rotating schedules. The authors conducted exceptions for online lectures, cadaver dissections, and written and practical examinations in three classes of approximately 50 students each. Furthermore, the authors assessed students’ performance using three sets of written and practical examinations, and students completed a questionnaire regarding modified anatomy laboratory schedules. Results Despite the pandemic events in Seoul and South Korea during the laboratory sessions, all sessions were completed without any confirmed COVID-19 cases among the students, faculty, and staff. Most of the scores on the written and practical examinations significantly decreased in 2020 compared to those in 2019. However, in the trunk session that used the virtual anatomy application, the score on the practical examination in 2020 was significantly higher than that in 2019. Over 70% (79 and 77 out of 105 respondents on the upper and lower limbs and trunk, respectively) and 53% (55/105) students reported that there were no significant difficulties in studying anatomy in a face-to-face laboratory. Conclusions In conclusion, an adequate education program for cadaver dissection should be developed and provided to overcome the pandemic restrictions. The study findings could serve as a reference for anatomy education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sural nerve, a cutaneous nerve, is clinically important because it is frequently for nerve conduction testing, biopsy, and harvesting for nerve grafts. This nerve exhibits a wide variety of variation in formation, distribution on the dorsum of the foot, and so on, depending on the population observed. In this study, we examined the variation in the sural nerve in 110 Korean cadavers. Of these cadavers, 86.1% of the sural nerves corresponded to type A, where tibial and peroneal components were united to form the sural nerve. These two components most frequently united (65.9%) in the third quarter of the calf, and when the union position was expressed as a ratio to calf length, it corresponded to 0.408 in men and 0.346 in women, with a statistically significant difference. Due to this sexual dimorphism in addition to shorter calf length in females, the length of the sural nerve was shorter in females (male average length: 14.5 ± 4.8 cm; female average length: 11.4 ± 2.9 cm). In terms of distribution of the lateral dorsal cutaneous nerve, the distal continuation of the sural nerve on the dorsum of the foot, it showed variation in association with the superficial peroneal nerve. The innervation of the sural nerve extended most frequently up to the lateral two and a half toes, solely or in conjunction with the superficial peroneal nerve. Obtaining further information regarding sural nerve variation will be useful for various clinical procedures and interpretation of sural nerve conduction results. Clin. Anat. 30:525-532, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract