The attitudes of medical students in Europe toward the clinical importance of embryology

Abstract

Although there have been many studies reporting the attitudes of medical students to the clinical importance of gross anatomy, little is known about their opinions concerning the clinical importance of embryology. Using Thurstone and Chave methods to assess attitudes, nearly 1,600 medical students across Europe in the early stages of their training provided responses to a survey that tested the hypothesis that they do not regard embryology as highly clinically relevant. Indeed, we further proposed that student attitudes to gross anatomy are much more positive than those toward embryology. Our findings show that our hypotheses hold, regardless of the university and country surveyed and regardless of the teaching methods employed for embryology. Clearly, embryology has a significant part to play in medical education in terms of understanding prenatal life, of appreciating how the organization of the mature human body has developed, and of providing essential information for general medical practice, obstetrics and pediatrics, and teratology. However, while newly recruited medical students understand the importance of gross anatomy in the development of professional competence, understanding the importance of embryology requires teachers, medical educationalists, and devisors of medical curricula to pay special attention to informing students of the significant role played by embryology in attaining clinical competence and achieving the knowledge and understanding of the biomedical sciences that underpins becoming a learned member of a health care profession.

The attitudes of medical students in Europe toward the clinical importance of histology

“…Although most data remain on the positive side for the attitude scale employed (i.e., central tendencies for the data ranging from 2 to 8), the students show more scepticism about histology's relevance than seen for the attitudes toward the importance of gross anatomy using the same Thurstone and Chave () methodologies (Patel and Moxham, ; Moxham and Moxham, ; Moxham and Plaisant, ; Kerby et al, ; Olowo‐Ofayoku and Moxham, ). However, the data is more positive than those previously reported for the clinical relevance of embryology in the European medical curriculum (Moxham et al, ). Indeed, a highly significant statistical difference was found between the data for histology and embryology ( P = 0.00).…”

“…As a contribution to the debate on the importance of the anatomical sciences in medicine, in this article we report on an assessment of the attitudes of medical students toward the clinical relevance of histology since, to understand best how to deal with the teaching of microscopic anatomy, it is necessary to evaluate the attitudes of students, academics, and clinicians (perhaps even Deans and medical educationalists). This is an initial stage for such investigations where we record the attitudes of medical students in their early years of training in a variety of universities across Europe using Thurstone and Chave attitude analyses similar to those previously employed to assess the attitudes to gross anatomy and some other biomedical disciplines (Patel and Moxham, ; Moxham and Plaisant, ; Kerby et al, ; Olowo‐Ofayoku and Moxham, ; Moxham et al, ). Our initial hypothesis was that medical students, at the early stages in their training, well appreciate the clinical importance of histology.…”

EMBRYOLOGY TEACHING: AN OFTEN-NEGLECTED PART OF THE MEDICAL CURRICULUM. Enseñanza de la Embriología: Una parte del Curriculum médico habitualmente relegada

“…However, in the curricula of medical schools, there is often larger space for other courses such as molecular biology, immunology, biochemistry, and often at the expense of morphological sciences (Grim, 2009). Embryology teaching varies considerably not only between countries but also between different universities (Moxham et al, 2016). For instance, in the USA, embryology is usually taught together with gross anatomy (integrated courses) (Drake et al, 2002), while in most medical schools in Slovakia or the Czech Republic it is taught in conjunction with histology.…”

Attitudes and Responses of Medical Students and Professional Anatomists to Dissecting Different Regions of the Body

“…Previous studies indicate that medical students believe that the study of gross anatomy is highly relevant to their clinical training; more relevant even than embryology and histology (Moxham and Moxham, ; Moxham and Plaisant, ; Kerby et al, ; Olowo‐Ofayoku and Moxham, ; Moxham et al, , ). Furthermore, there is evidence that they prefer that they are taught, and learn, gross anatomy by practical means (e.g., by dissection, using cadaveric prosections, and by tuition involving radiological and surface anatomy) (Pabst and Rothkötter, ; Hofer, ; Patel and Moxham, ; Moxham and Moxham, ; Moxham and Plaisant, ; Korf et al, ; Boeckers et al, ; Kerby et al, ; Olowo‐Ofayoku and Moxham, ).…”