Clinical embryology: is there still a place in medical schools today?

Embryology remains an important tool in medicine and surgery for the management of many clinical conditions. As a subject, it is neither straightforward nor easy to learn and teach in a busy modern medical school curriculum and can be easily overlooked. The aim of this study was to assess medical students' confidence in, and attitudes towards, the learning and teaching of clinical embryology.

Medical students from all years of the course were asked to complete an online questionnaire in 2014. The questionnaire focused on confidence levels in learning embryology, methods of teaching, clinical embryology and it also allowed comments. In total, 146 students completed the questionnaire. The majority of students were not confident in learning and applying embryology and were unhappy with current teaching. Despite this, they felt that embryology should be included in the medical school curriculum, in particular clinical embryology with relevant clinical scenarios.

Students remain confident that embryology should remain in the medical school curriculum. Embryology should be taught at the right level, depth and through various methods, including basic concepts in the lower years of medical school and moving into clinical embryology later on. As a result, junior doctors and trainees will have a good foundation of knowledge.