Use of individual feedback during human gross anatomy course for enhancing professional behaviors in doctor of physical therapy students

Abstract

Medical professionals and public consumers expect that new physical therapy graduates possess cognitive, technical, and behavioral skills required to provide safe and high-quality care to patients. The purpose of this study was to determine if a repertoire of ten professional behaviors assessed at the beginning of doctorate of physical therapy education and before the first significant clinical internship could be enhanced in a semester course in gross human anatomy using individual formative feedback. During the human anatomy course, 28 first-year physical therapy students completed six biweekly, anonymous self- and peer assessment surveys that targeted ten professional behaviors important to physical therapists. All professional behaviors were assessed using a five-point Likert scale. Feedback reports occurred at week eight (mid-semester) and week 16 (end-of-semester) and comprised the direct intervention components of this study. At the midpoint of the semester, professional behavior scores and narrative comments from weeks two, four, and six were compiled and shared with each student by one of three faculty members in a feedback session. Students then submitted biweekly self-and peer professional behavior assessments (weeks 10, 12, and 14) for the remainder of the human anatomy course. Differences between preintervention and postintervention scores for each of the ten professional behaviors were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. Upon receiving mid-semester individual feedback, students demonstrated significant improvement in each of the ten professional behaviors. Results from this study indicated a gross anatomy laboratory dissection experience during the first academic semester provided an effective opportunity for teaching and assessing professional behaviors of doctoral students in physical therapy.

A novel phased‐concept course for the delivery of anatomy and orthopedics training in medical education

“…The present phased concept does allow the testing of new teaching ideas prior to their integration into the existing medical curriculum, providing some small benefit to the teaching staff. Furthermore, the hands‐on nature of the courses was strongly appreciated by students, reinforcing previous findings that indicate these concepts are valued by students (Groscurth et al, ; Hammer et al, ), and that students strongly appreciated the contact of active clinicians via an interdisciplinary approach (Youdas et al, ; Fernandes et al, ; Thistlethwaite, ; Pawlina and Drake, ). On occasion, staffing shortages and scheduling have meant that instead of 1 week being required for delivery, the course has been delivered over several.…”

“…This novel phased‐concept course on combined anatomy and surgery teaching sought to further deepen both anatomical and surgically relevant knowledge and skills, in a hands‐on environment (Bergman et al, ; Johnson et al, ) utilizing contributions from anatomists and senior medical staff, while promoting orthopedics as a potential career option. The design and implementation of this concept promotes an interdisciplinary approach (Youdas et al, ; Fernandes et al, ; Thistlethwaite, ; Pawlina and Drake, ) that addresses clinical and professional skills, in part motivated by previous studies indicating deficiencies in previous medical curricula (Wallenstein, ). The concept has attracted students with a general interest in orthopedics, with courses viewed positively by course participants in regards to delivering clinically important knowledge.…”

Sexism within anatomy as perceived by professional anatomists and in comparison with the perceptions of medical students

“…First, as they are often the first teachers that students meet when they start their medical education anatomists can be thought of as “opinion makers” influencing some of the early attitudes and behavior of the students. Indeed, many papers are available in the literature commending anatomists and anatomy course for introducing professional skills and attitudes alongside imparting important medical and scientific information (e.g., Patel and Moxham, ; Moxham and Moxham, ; Youdas et al ; Wittich et al ). Second, the subject of anatomy, being directly concerned visually and tangibly with the human body, lends itself readily to appreciation of gender issues, particularly of course when primary and secondary sexual organs are considered.…”

First Year Medical Student Peer Nominations of Professionalism: A Methodological Detective Story about Making Sense of Non‐Sense

“…Furthermore, previous research indicates that students receive important messages about what it means to be a professional not only via the formal and faculty controlled curriculum, but also through a variety of other‐than‐formal learning vehicles—some of which are grounded in peer interactions (Hafferty and Franks, ; Hafferty, ; Stern and Papadakis, ; Hafferty and O'Donnell, ). Finally, this research builds upon a literature that frames histology and anatomy as settings of group learning (Krych et al, ; Spandorfer et al, ; Wittich et al, ; Youdas et al, ; Pizzimenti et al, ) and as environments that are highly networked and relationally centered (Hafferty et al, ). This research sets out to identify intrinsic and extrinsic qualities that influence the perception of professionalism in first year medical students by using social network analysis and related data‐analytic tools to identify both patterns of nominations and to assess changes in perceptions over time.…”

“…Adding to this enfilade has been a parallel effort to assess (Stern, 2005;Lynch et al, 2004;Hodges et al, 2011;Ginsburg et al, 2012;Li et al, 2017) what many still consider to be a definitionally elusive concept (Ginsburg et al, 2002;Birden et al, 2014;Irby and Hamstra, 2016). Assessment settings range from pre-matriculation venues such as undergraduate (Stern et al, 2005;Kleshinski et al, 2008) to graduate/residency admissions (Bajwa et al, 2017) to basic science coursework (Macpherson and Kenny, 2008), particularly in anatomy Youdas et al, 2013;Wittich et al, 2013;Spandorfer et al, 2014;Hefler and Ramnanan, 2017), with, clinical settings (Arnold et al, 2007;Tiffin et al, 2011;Lee and Wimmers, 2016) being the assessment venue of choice for both undergraduate medical education (UME) and graduate medical education (GME), (Quaintance et al, 2008;Byszewski et al, 2017).…”