The Awareness of Medical Students in Nigerian Universities about the Use of Plastinated Specimens for Anatomical Studies

Abstract

Over the past decade, the role of anatomical teaching in the undergraduate medical curriculum has changed considerably. At some medical schools, active dissection of cadaveric specimens is gradually being replaced by prosection-based methods and other resources such as e-learning, use of plastinated materials and models. Academic faculties in some of our medical schools are recently obtaining necessary skills in plastination technology which would aid in the future production and usage of plastinated prosections. The latter would be used as adjunct to wet cadaveric specimens in undergraduate anatomy teaching. The aim of this study was to examine students' views on the use of plastinated prosections for their anatomical learning. This was a cross-sectional study using questionnaires and focus group for data collection. The questionnaire was completed by 280 undergraduate medical and anatomy students out of 300 (response rate 93%). The majority of students (70%) have never heard of plastination before while 40 % of the remainder heard through the internet. Also, 94.29% rated plastinated prosections as a valuable resource for their anatomical learning and would want to learn about the technique. While 75% of respondents felt that students would benefit immensely from plastinated prosections, more than 78% said it should be used alongside other cadaveric materials. We conclude that plastinated prosections are an adequate resource for the early stages of undergraduate training, but that the learning experience may be further enhanced by providing opportunity for the study of wet cadaveric material.

Plastination technology for anatomical studies in Nigeria: Opinion of teachers at medical institutions

“…The general acceptability of plastination as a necessary anatomical tool by teachers of anatomy in the various medical schools sampled also agrees with our previous studies, which showed that medical students where strongly in support of the introduction of plastinated specimens to complement cadaveric materials and introduce a new dimension to anatomical study (Azu et al 2012).…”

“…This has placed an enormous burden on medical teachers and educators to adapt to the change in medical trends and to develop ways of delivering knowledge to students in a manner that are evidencebased and theoretically robust. We previously carried out a survey on the applicability and relevance of problem-based learning in anatomy for pharmacy students (Azu & Osinubi 2011) and on the introduction and relevance of plastinates in anatomical resource centres (Azu et al 2012) as part of this changing trend in medical education. Therefore, it has become more pertinent than ever to ask the question: what are the opinions of teachers of anatomy regarding the need to adapt to the newer teaching modalities such as the ProblemBased Learning method, use of plastinated specimens, computer-aided software and so forth, to teaching the subject of anatomy within the framework of the various institutions?…”

“…In this instance, plastinates are the teaching materials and hence represent a basic resource available to teachers of anatomy for teaching anatomical knowledge. Student satisfaction and acceptance has also been recorded using plastinated models or specimens (Latorre et al 2007) and in our previous survey (Azu et al 2012) these were also shown as an additional resource in anatomical laboratories. Nevertheless, plastinated specimens should ideally be used as adjuvant with cadaveric dissection for full appreciation of the interactions between body systems and to understand the body as one entity (Sugand et al 2010).…”

“…These specimens also prevent exposure of staff and students to the toxic substances (e.g. formaldehyde) used in classical preservation of biological tissues (Latorre et al 2007;Azu et al 2012). …”

Views of medical students on anatomy education supported by plastinated cadavers

“…70% of the students in Nigeria and 98.23% of the students in India had no knowledge on plastination. [6,7] In this study, the rate of students who had no knowledge on Table 3 Views of students on the education provided with plastinated cadavers. fixation was 68.8%, while the rate of those who had no knowledge on plastination was 47.4%.…”