Anatomy in the COVID Pandemic
Mentor: Maria Maldonado, MD academic hospitalist at the Michael E. DeBakey Medical Center and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine
It was March of 2020 that I first met Zoom. It was love at first login. I remember that magical moment when I realized I could turn off my camera to eat, workout, or lie in bed during mandatory lectures. Even more life changing was the first time I woke up 10 minutes before a small group meeting and crawled to my computer in my blanket cocoon to start the day. By the end of my second year of medical school, I think I existed in a haze of First Aid mnemonics and UWorld question bank dejection that tempted me to try listening at 5x speed to my recorded, virtual lectures. Now, I’m over the medical school hill as a third-year medical student. I have hopefully gained wisdom and can reflect on what this COVID pandemic meant for pre-clinical medical education, focusing on one of the pillars: anatomy.
There were significant changes in anatomy education even before the pandemic. Schools now boast to potential students about being “prosection” or “dissection” schools in order to attract candidates. Traditional medical school anatomy involves students performing all aspects of dissection as a rite of passage. It is now increasingly common for medical schools to have a prosection curriculum where an experienced anatomist performs the dissection and demonstrates the anatomy. This saves our time. Without spending time cutting one fascial layer at a time or accidentally severing both saphenous veins, we can spend more time learning the material we need to know. While I understand the benefits, prosection has always felt too passive to me.
For those that have gone through true anatomy dissection, it is one of the first experiences where many skills in medicine collide. One must face mortality and disturbing smells while they work with a team of highly motivated and stressed colleagues. In spite of the confusion and uncertainty I faced in that lab, I challenged myself to be present and learn in that environment. Dissection education sacrificed my comfort and time but helped better prepare me for clinical service. The skills of perseverance and attentiveness while balancing depersonalization and empathy serve anyone who is trying to learn about a patient during a long shift or rotation. In a way, dissection lab is about nurturing the active learning and soft skills one needs to be a lifelong learner while teaching a tenant of medicine.
The COVID pandemic forced anatomy prosection into my anatomy curriculum, and I truly believe my education suffered. In March of 2020, I went from an anatomy lab to staring at ovaries, colons, and kidneys on a laptop screen from my blanket cocoon. I was disappointed that all of my 3D learning became 2D. I was disappointed that all of my active learning became passive. Anatomy education focused on teaching only anatomy without addressing the problem-solving, teamwork, and concentration skills that come with dissection. On a broader scale, during the pandemic, medical education shifted to an online, passive model. I could wake up right before class or watch class on my own terms. I loved the freedom and rest, but now that I am in the wards, I see how much value I could have gained from those skills like professionalism and composure that come with active, present, and critical learning.
Now, I must grapple with catching up and learning to function as part of the healthcare team. Pre-clinical medical education continues to lean towards an online-based, time-saving model for students. But, COVID has taught us what we miss in those models. From anatomy to higher medical education, I feel the skill of being a medical learner and educator in the clinic or in the hospital is best learned in the lab or in the school.
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