Impacts of a gross anatomy laboratory course on medical students’ emotional reactions in Taiwan: the role of high-level emotions

Abstract

Background Gross anatomy laboratory course at medical school is usually an important learning subject for medical students; however, seeing a cadaver often makes them feel uncomfortable. According to the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions broaden our inventory of thoughts and actions, and build physical, mental, and social resources. Research on positive psychology found that through direct thanks and positive reframing, people who feel gratitude show fewer depressive symptoms. The present study tried to reduce students’ negative emotions towards cadavers by sequential activities, such as family interviews and an initiation ceremony, which induced gratitude and other positive emotions. Methods The Emotional Reactions Towards Cadavers Scale (ERTCS) was used to evaluate medical students’ emotional reactions after they see a cadaver. Third year medical students (n = 105) at Taipei Medical University in northern Taiwan completed ERTCS on three occasions within a single semester during academic year 2016. Repeated-measures ANOVA and hierarchical regression analyses were then conducted to identify any changes in the emotional reactions of these students. Results The ERTCS showed satisfactory internal consistency and a three-factor structure, i.e., negative emotions, high-level emotions, and excited emotions. High-level emotions were the highest, and negative emotions were the lowest among the three in our sample. Three-wave data showed that participants’ high-level emotions increased, negative emotions decreased, and the former simultaneously predicted the latter after controlling for the influence of gender, religious beliefs, experience of the death of a family member or friend, and burnout level. Conclusions While past research usually focused on coping strategies to reduce medical students’ negative emotions, our study supported the broaden-and-build theory, which emphasizes positive emotions, and demonstrated that elevating medical students’ gratitude to ‘silent mentors’ is an effective way. It is suggested that combining dissection courses with medical humanities can help students successfully handle negative emotions during a gross anatomy laboratory course.

Anxiety, emotions, and thoughts of veterinary medicine students during their first visit to the dissection room

“…Different types of strategies have been proposed to reduce the level of stress or anxiety of practicals with cadavers in medical students, one of which is the use of videos. 17,20,23,27,51 Attardi and colleagues proposed YouTube-based videos that basically show the facilities in the dissection room but without the direct presence of the corpses; however, this strategy does not significantly reduce students' anxiety. 52 In contrast, other works have reported that the use of recordings showing dissections does have an effect on reducing students' stress levels.…”

Implementing virtual reality technology to teach medical college systemic anatomy: A pilot study

“…Many universities worldwide teach gross anatomy to classes of more than 100 students. 20,[26][27][28] This poses challenges for VR education, as it is difficult for institutions to prepare adequate hardware and software resources. Consequently, students must often queue and make appointments to practice with VR equipment.…”

När lärandet blir svårt: En forskningsöversikt om studenters upplevelser av känslomässiga utmaningar i undervisningssituationer

“…Att dissekera hjärnan och hjärtat upplevdes även som särskilt känsligt eftersom dessa organ förknippas med en individs personlighet och känslor (Martyn et al, 2012). Andra studenter kände respekt och tacksamhet för människorna som donerat sina kroppar och ett ansvar att lära sig så mycket som möjligt (Chang et al, 2018;Chiou et al, 2021). För en del studenter väckte mötet med döda kroppar tankar på liv och död och sin egen dödlighet (Criado-Álvarez et al, 2017;Fortunato et al, 2018) eller religiösa och andliga funderingar (Lamdin et al, 2012).…”