A new vision: a transformative approach to teach surgical anatomy to undergraduate medical students

Anatomy is fundamental knowledge for medicine, especially for the surgical professions. However, undergraduate surgical education is often overlooked, causing substantial challenges for medical students in terms of recognizing anatomical structures in clinical settings, and this is particularly difficult in laparoscopic surgery. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a novel approach to teach surgical anatomy to medical students to enhance their confidence in learning surgical procedures.

A new elective course involving a three-step transformative lecture (a brief anatomy review, a virtual reality video of simulated laparoscopic views, and a clinical surgery video explained by surgeons) and hands-on surgical practice on silent mentors, "Clinical Abdominal Surgical Anatomy," was developed, implemented, and evaluated.

Thirty-six students from the 2 academic years enrolled and agreed to participate in this study. The scores of tests before and after lectures, reflection notes, and questionnaires were collected and analyzed. A comparison of pre- and post-test scores revealed a significant increase in the students' knowledge of surgical anatomy. The students were satisfied with the three-step transformative lecture and agreed that this course enhanced their learning and confidence in surgical anatomy, especially in terms of understanding the importance of anatomical landmarks in clinical surgery. Furthermore, the students felt that the hands-on practice and rotating surgical role-play improved their skills and deepened their awareness of surgical teamwork.

In conclusion, a transformative teaching framework of undergraduate surgical education was successfully created, and its feasibility tested. This innovative course could offer a practical solution to enhance undergraduate student confidence in learning surgical procedures.