The Impact of the Covid‐19 Pandemic on Current Anatomy Education and Future Careers: A Student’s Perspective

Challenges in Teaching Human Anatomy to Students with Intellectual Disabilities During the Covid‐19 Pandemic

“…In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the various subsequent changes and behavioral adjustments necessary in the educational field, two important articles were recently published in Anatomical Sciences Education (Franchi, 2020;Srinivasan, 2020). The first study (Franchi, 2020) reported the impact of the pandemic on human anatomy education in the United Kingdom. This article described from the perspective of a medical student how the lack of practical teaching with cadavers can adversely impact training and lead to losses for students.…”

“…This article described from the perspective of a medical student how the lack of practical teaching with cadavers can adversely impact training and lead to losses for students. The author further pointed out that the learning environment was less than ideal (Franchi, 2020). Conversely, Srinivasan (2020) reported in the second article that effective and successful online learning was implemented using Zoom video conferencing platform (Zoom Video Communications, Inc., San Jose, CA) in Singapore.…”

“…As a preventive measure against Covid-19, many educational institutions, including those for higher education, were mobilized to adjust their teaching approaches and suspend face-to-face classes. Universities had to adapt to this situation by restructuring their teaching methods by teaching online classes and still ensuring continuity and teaching quality (Franchi, 2020;Srinivasan, 2020;Walensky and del Rio, 2020). These changes were implemented in order to continue education in the virtual classroom as an alternative method (Pather et al, 2020;Srinivasan, 2020) but concurrently, they restricted teaching practices in the anatomy laboratory (Pather et al, 2020).…”

“…The use of remote resources, although satisfactory for approaches to theoretical content, cannot overcome a major problem: the interruption of practical content, as laboratories for teaching practices in anatomy remain inoperative. Universities worldwide are facing this issue as students have to learn anatomy without access to learning materials based on practice, such as cadavers, 3D anatomical models, and synthetic parts (Witowski, 2016;Franchi, 2020). Currently, the university provides access to the Athena Hub, a 3D interactive anatomy software, version 1.7 in Portuguese (Medical Harbor, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil) in an attempt to minimize the damage caused by the interruption of practical classes, indicating that these adjustments should continue.…”

Ethical Responses to the Covid‐19 Pandemic: Implications for the Ethos and Practice of Anatomy as a Health Science Discipline

“…Inevitably, this move has had major implications for lectures and tutorials, but these have been dwarfed by those for laboratory‐based classes, that, in turn, are dwarfed by the character of the anatomy laboratory with its face‐to‐face body/dissection‐centered, learning pedagogies. The educational repercussions for staff and students have been very well documented in a number of recent articles by a range of anatomists and students (Evans et al, 2020; Franchi, 2020; Gupta and Pandey, 2020; Longhurst et al, 2020; Pather et al, 2020; Ravi, 2020; Singal et al, 2020). The radical revision of roles and expectations has led to a loss of hands‐on experiences and access to cadavers on account of the lack of access to traditional educational approaches, leading to a range of consequences for both students and staff.…”