Context of study

The Medical School at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Australia, delivers a four‐year graduate‐entry medical program with approximately 100 students in each year. The program consists of four themes (medical sciences, clinical skills, population health, and professionalism and leadership) and four frameworks (social foundations of medicine, rural health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, and research). In the first two years, the seven systems‐based blocks are built around PBL at the university campus with a clinical day at the hospital each week. During the six clinical blocks in Years 3 and 4, students spend most of their contact time learning during clinical rotations in hospital and community health settings.

Anatomy, one component of the medical science theme, is formally delivered to all students during Years 1 and 2 using multimedia resources such as videos, online lessons, and formative assessments with immediate feedback (50 hours); interactive lectures (50 hours); and active learning laboratory‐based anatomy practical sessions (80 hours) involving small groups of five students studying prosected specimens, plastic models, computer models, bones, surface anatomy, radiological anatomy, and clinically applied case studies. All students receive the same introduction to anatomy at the commencement of the program. Anatomy is also integrated into PBL and clinical skills activities and revisited during the six clinical blocks and rotations in Years 3 and 4. All students have the opportunity to voluntarily undertake a minimum of 8 hours dissection during Years 1 and/or 2 (approximately 30% of Year 1 and 2 students participate each year) where they are introduced to the instruments and techniques to dissect a body region of their choice in a pair. Anatomy is a component of the integrated written examinations that occur at the end of each systems‐based block. Because it is a graduate‐entry program, students may have experience of anatomy and/or dissection from a previous degree.