Exercise Anatomy: A Flexible Approach

Autor: Gabrielle Guzzardo, Maryssa Gilbert, Maureen Schaefer, Carrie Nazaroff
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: The FASEB Journal. 35
ISSN: 1530-6860
0892-6638
Popis: The global trend within medical curricula to significantly reduce anatomy teaching hours demonstrates there is a clear need for instructors to become more creative in their development of outside teaching resources. Yet, instructors must be cognizant not to overload students with extraneous work that derails a reasonable work-life balance as student wellness is a high priority. To combat these two seemingly contradictory expectations, this study explored the impact of exercise-focused anatomy review sessions on medical students. We investigated the success in which movement aided in content retention as well as its influence on wellness, and attitude toward learning. Our research was a non-blinded, randomized-controlled study with voluntary recruitment of 1st and 2nd year medical students. The experimental group attended 1 in-person (pre-COVID) and 3 video (post-COVID) anatomy led exercise review sessions. These sessions consisted of performing demonstrated exercise techniques that correlated with anatomical concepts relating to the week's topic. A control group was also recruited and received four online anatomy review packets of synonymous content to be studied for the same duration of time as the experimental group, void of physical activity. The four anatomy sessions were divided by topic, teaching abdominal, upper extremity, lower extremity, and neuroanatomy. To measure anatomical comprehension, pre- and post-session quizzes formatted into board-style clinical questions were administered and compared in both groups. Subjective data was solicited in the form of student comments and a standardized survey focusing on physical awareness, exercise practices, and perceived physical and mental wellness before and after the course. Results indicated no statistically significant difference between the pre- and post-quiz scores amongst the control and exercise groups (control: pre 19, post 23;experiment: pre 19, post 22). Both groups improved their score, demonstrating anatomical comprehension regardless of review session format. Differences were found however, between student responses in the wellness survey. 92.3% of the exercise group found the sessions to be at least somewhat enjoyable, whereas only 46.2% of the control group offered the same rating. 92.3% of the exercise group would recommend the exercise anatomy sessions to a classmate, and 84.6% of the exercise group believes exercise anatomy sessions are something that should be incorporated into medical school curricula. The experimental group's views on in-person versus video exercise sessions were also compared. 46.2% felt they got more out of the in-person session than the videos, while 30.8% found the in-person and video sessions equally beneficial. The benefit of exercise in medical students is both timely and valuable, as our society has become more conscientious of the importance of health and wellness. Our study demonstrated that both in-person and video exercise sessions led to positive attitudes toward learning anatomy. This finding is of particular interest during the time of COVID in which most live teaching events are not possible. Furthermore, incorporating movement into reviewing curricular content can be a way to promote physical wellbeing to medical students.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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