Perception of Medical Students and Doctors on Osteology Education

Abstract

Anatomy is being taught as a compulsory subject in various health care-related occupations. In anatomy, osteology is learning the names of bones and offers detailed structure of each bone and clinical knowledge. Therefore, understanding of bones is needed to learn the names of muscles, nerves, and blood vessels attached to each bone, and helps to remember the basic structure and function of human body. This study investigated the need for osteological learning and conducted a survey on medical students and doctors with experience in anatomy to identify the problems of osteological education. According to the result of conducting a survey on 186 people, doctors showed higher positive opinion on lectures, exams, and grades of osteology than medical students but did not show a statistically significant difference. Doctors showed higher positive opinions about osteological practice than medical students, and showed statistically significant difference (p=0.037). Senior teaching (41.8%) was selected as the biggest problem in osteological education today followed by a short lecture, lack model, lack of study hours, and examination. Also, students had little difficulty in learning chest, spine, and limbs but showed difficulty in learning pelvis especially the head and required a lot of learning time. It was identified that more time is needed for doctors than for medical students in every system and showed a significant difference. This study suggests the necessity of formal education for osteology education and that combining lecture on theory and practice can raise learning effect of anatomy in effective osteology education.