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Application and Relevancy of Anatomy Curriculum in the Clinical Years: A Malaysian University Experience

Human anatomy is one of the fundamental subjects in medical and health education. In recent years, anatomy teaching in Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) has undergone a major transition from a highly detailed, didactic method to student-centred pedagogy and clinical correlations. Hence, this study aimed to assess the perception of the anatomy curriculum amongst USIM clinical students and to evaluate the clinicians’ cognisance of their students’ anatomical knowledge and application. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 232 clinical students (fourth-, fifth- and final-year) and 32 clinicians from various disciplines with the validated questionnaires. Descriptive analysis was performed to analyse the findings regarding students’ and clinicians’ perceptions. The majority of the students agreed that the anatomy curriculum was adequately covered in the pre-clinical years except for the imaging and clinical correlation classes. In terms of the teaching method, most of the students perceived that the tutorials (99.2%), practical sessions (98.7%), lectures (97.4%) and problembased learning (PBL) (96.1%) were the best approaches in understanding anatomy comprehensively. Results also indicated that the practical sessions (99.1%), lectures (94.8%), tutorials (94.8%) and PBL (93.9%) were the best methods in retaining anatomy knowledge. Besides, 62.9% of students strongly agreed that objective structured practical examination (OSPE) was the most helpful assessment for their anatomical knowledge retention. The majority of the clinicians perceived their clinical year students had a satisfactory level of anatomical knowledge (n = 21, 65.6%) and also believed that the anatomical correlation classes were essential for their disciplines. Students recognised the value of the current teaching methodology for their knowledge retention and comprehension. However, both clinicians and students felt there were limited opportunities for clinical application during teaching and learning. It is therefore imperative to implement appropriate restructuring to the current anatomy curriculum to address students’ needs and preferences for their future medical practice.