The dissection course (DC) is an essential part of the preclinical medical curriculum that mediates professionalism. The process of dissecting, however, has an inherent additional stress potential. Our study determined student mental stress, their need of psychological support and factors influencing this need. A quantitative longitudinal query before, during and after the DC was performed including the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) as well as self-formulated questions used a 5-point Likert scale. Half of the students who anticipated dissection to be a stress factor reported that this declined significantly over time. Instead, student fear of not being able to cope with the work load increased significantly. As many as 64% of the students favored psychological support on the first course day, while 75% rejected this during the period of dissection and 39% appreciated this after the course. Moreover, 42% emphasized the importance of the funeral ceremony. Additionally, 75% documented their need for support in coping with stress and learning strategies. Gender, previous medical training, and BSI levels were identified as psychosocial influence factors. A majority of students named friends, members of their family or workmates as partners with whom they could talk about mental stress. Our results document the need to develop an optimum support during the DC taking into account the ascertained indicators. Exemplarily the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Ulm University suggests several options like a step by step approach for optimization. These measures reduce mental stress and help students to cope with it by the development of "detached concern" towards their "first patient" as this will decisively influence their future professional behavior.

How can we deal with mental distress in the dissection room?—An evaluation of the need for psychological support

Anatomy is the fundamental of medical and health professional education. Anatomic dissection enables the examination of the organs in the human cadavers systematically and topographically. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the first cadaver demonstration and the anxiety of medical, dental and pharmacy students. A questionnaire was distributed to 486 students in the same academic year (2009–2010) at Ege University. The review of anxiety reveals the circumstances such as exhaustion, stress, depression, anxiety, destructive life, deterioration of mental or physical quality or asthenia (over-fatigue), professionally having a serious effect on the students. 486 (85.3 %) students in total participated in this research carried out as based on voluntariness as 338 (93.9 %) students from the medical faculty, 78 (70.9 %) students from the faculty of dentistry and 70 (70 %) students from the faculty of pharmacy.

Anxiety of first cadaver demonstration in medical, dentistry and pharmacy faculty students.

Practical training in the dissection of human cadavers is a fundamental and traditional component of human anatomy education in medical schools. This practice, however, can be stressful for students and can generate a certain amount of anxiety. The aim of this study is to explore the attitudes, reactions, and anxiety levels of first-year medical students when working in the dissecting room, over a period of one year, and to relate these anxiety levels to the results of our educational program. This is a before and after descriptive study of students at the University of Castilla-La-Mancha. Questionnaires were distributed among them before and after their dissection practices in order to understand their feelings and emotions and their satisfaction about this activity. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaires were used to assess the students' 'state anxiety' (SA), which dropped significantly from 49.1% to 14% by the end of their first year. Female students started with higher levels of SA than their male counterparts but by the end of the year these had dropped to similar levels. Anxiety and fearful thoughts tended to drop (P > 0.05). In contrast, uncertainty levels showed significant changes, falling from 44.4% to 12.3%. Nonetheless, 100% of students would go through the experience again. Indeed, 98.2% considered that dissection practices were useful in reinforcing the theoretical aspects of their education, and 80.7% believed that dissecting was more useful than theoretical models. Although students were satisfied with dissection practices the experience cause stressful responses.

Anxiety among Medical Students when Faced with the Practice of Anatomical Dissection.

There is much room for innovation in teaching medical students professionalism. The goal of this exercise was to enhance first-year Gross Anatomy students’ understanding of professionalism, including the attributes of confidentiality, respectful behavior and humanism in medicine through a video interview with a donor family member. Survey results demonstrated that students generally agreed that the video helped them better understand professionalism in the context of the gross anatomy laboratory and gave them a deeper respect for donors. Most students strongly agreed that future medical students would benefit from viewing this video interview.

The use of a video interview to enhance gross anatomy students' understanding of professionalism.

Background: The anatomy course offers important opportunities to develop professionalism at an early stage in medical education. It is an academically significant course that also engenders stress in some students. Methods: Over a three-year period, 115 of 297 students completed creative projects. Thirty-four project completers and 47 non-completers consented to participate in the study. Projects were analyzed for professionalism themes using grounded theory. A subset of project completers and non-completers were interviewed to determine their views about the stress of anatomy and medical school, as well as the value of the creative projects. We also compared test performance of project completers and non-completers. Results: Projects completed early in the course often expressed ambivalence about anatomy, whereas later projects showed more gratitude and sense of awe. Project completers tended to report greater stress than noncompleters, but stated that doing projects reduced stress and caused them to develop a richer appreciation for anatomy and medicine. Project completers performed significantly lower than non-completers on the first written exam (pre-project). Differences between groups on individual exams after both the first and second creative project were nonsignificant. Conclusion: For some students, creative projects may offer a useful way of reflecting on various aspects of professionalism while helping them to manage stress.

/pdf/relationship-of-creative-projects-in-anatomy-to-medical-1iddnptwt4.pdf

Relationship of creative projects in anatomy to medical student professionalism, test performance and stress: an exploratory study.

Dissection of a human body during an anatomy course raises questions about invasion of privacy, cadaver sources, dying and death for medical students. The technical orientation in any medical education process tends to motivate students towards a purely biological view of the human body. An orientation lesson was performed, including technical instructions, with particular emphasis on how to deal with emotions. Two hundred and forty-two second-year students were asked to complete a questionnaire and two State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) self-reports. One hundred and two students participated in an orientation lesson (group A) and 140 students did not (group B). Data were analyzed using SPSS. The t-test and chi-square test were used to evaluate differences between the groups. Group A students showed significantly better performance in both a verbal anatomy examination and multiple-choice test than group B students (p=0.001). There were no differences between group A and B students in the state and trait anxiety levels, willingness to donate their body or organs, belief in life after death, social activity or gender. The goal of including consideration of psychosocial factors in an anatomy course would allow students a thoughtful interpretation of their laboratory experience in the context of their professional development as physicians.

Orientation lesson in anatomy education

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Orientation lesson in anatomy education