Snapshot of anatomy teaching in physician assistant education.

PURPOSE

Cadaver dissection has been a defining part of the culture of medical education for centuries. Currently there is an active debate regarding the advantages of dissection versus other forms of teaching anatomy.

METHODS

De-identified data from the 2010 Curriculum Survey were obtained from the Physician Assistant Education Association, with 82 PA programs responding to anatomy curriculum questions. SPSS 21 was used for descriptive statistics, t-tests, and Mann-Whitney tests.

RESULTS

Programs reported a mean of 102.4 and median of 91 contact hours in anatomy (range 4-270). The "average" PA program anatomy course used 57.4% lecture, 4.6% simulation, 25.9% dissection, and 12.1% prosection. Private programs had significantly fewer total and lab contact-hours than public programs.

DISCUSSION

Teaching anatomy through cadaver dissection poses many challenges for health professions educators. Based on the results presented, PA programs are addressing this challenge in a variety of ways in their curricula.