Dissection and peer teaching in an undergraduate MBBS curriculum: Student opinions and learning outcomes

The first 2½ years of the MBBS course at University of Tasmania is organised by organ systems, promoting integrated learning across scientific disciplines. In gross anatomy, learning activities include lectures, practicals (with anatomical models, prosections, radiological images, etc.), dissection, and dissection tutorials, which collectively combine systemic and regional anatomy. Across four semesters, a total of 92 hours of dissection is scheduled; however, each student does only 39 hours of dissection: one-third or one-half of a student cohort dissect at 2 x 2 hour sessions, then, in a ‘reciprocal peer teaching and learning’ (RPTL) paradigm, dissectors (‘teachers’) demonstrate their dissections to non-dissector classmates (‘students’) at a one-hour tutorial. On student evaluation with Likert scales, dissection rated higher than practicals or dissection tutorials as useful to learn and understand anatomy (60% vs 45% strongly agree). On a survey, more than 70% of students thought they did much better, better, or slightly better on questions relating to anatomical regions they dissected and taught. Analysis of summative practical exam questions revealed that those who dissected and were RPTL teachers scored higher (67.0%+14.5%) on related questions than those who didn’t dissect and were RPTL students (64.6%+14.6%), paired sample t-test p=0.002. These results suggest that dissection combined with RPTL teaching leads to better anatomy learning compared to RPTL student role alone. However, in practical terms, a combination of dissection and RPTL tutorials is an effective way for students to learn anatomy, in a time- and resource-constrained MBBS curriculum.