Medical School Anatomy and Pathology Workshops for High School Students Enhance Learning and Provide Inspiration for Careers in Medicine

Abstract

“Anatomy and Pathology Workshop” is a cadaver-based outreach program that models medical education to large groups of high school students. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of this program on students’ knowledge of anatomy and interest in biomedical science. A total of 144 high school students participated in the workshop in 2015. Preworkshop and postworkshop assessments were administered to assess students’ learning. A postworkshop survey was conducted to solicit students’ reflections and feedback. It was found that student performance in the postworkshop examination (mean 78%) had significantly improved when compared to the performance in the preexamination (mean 54%), indicating that this program enhances learning. Students were also inspired to consider opportunities in medicine and allied health professions—97% indicated that they had a better understanding of medical education; 95% agreed that they had better understanding of the human body; 84% thought anatomy was interesting and exciting; and 62% of the students indicated that they looked forward to studying medicine or another health profession. Students rated the instructors highly—95% agreed that the instructors were professional and served as role models. Medical/graduate student instructors were also highly regarded by the high school students—96% thought it was valuable to have student instructors and 94% thought that student instructors were caring and enthusiastic about teaching. In summary, this study demonstrates that outreach programs provided by medical schools help young adults during their formative years by modeling professionalism, providing role models, enhancing learning, and encouraging many to consider opportunities in the health professions.

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“…In this project, each group of student activities lasted one day. Zhang et al's (2016) project, which was aimed at high school students, employed a similar methodology. In the present project as Zhang et al's, a small number of high school students who participated in the abovementioned activities engaged in practice related to one of the selected anatomical systems using a cadaver (synchronously with whatever subject was being studied in their school‐based biology course), following a PowerPoint presentation and a lecture on the theoretical knowledge pertaining to the selected anatomical system.…”

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Perception of The Teaching of Pathological Anatomy by Students of The Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Lomé, Togo 

“…Pathological Anatomy is a fundamental medical discipline that studies lesions caused by disease using techniques based on macroscopic and microscopic morphology [1]. A distinction is made between general pathological anatomy which studies the major lesional processes concerning the fundamental elements of an organism and special pathological anatomy which studies the pathologies of all the apparatuses of the human body [2].…”

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