Early exposure of laparoscopic anatomy to first year medical undergraduate students: is it necessary?

The teaching of undergraduate anatomy is particularly based on cadaveric dissection. Currently, medical curriculum is continually evolving and focusing on clinical application, especially for first year medical undergraduate students. Recently, surgical educators defined a role for laparoscopy in teaching anatomy. This study was conducted to know the opinion by first year medical undergraduate students, of current teaching practices and which teaching modalities should be emphasized. In this study a total of 200 first-year medical undergraduate students were exposed to a Diagnostic Laparoscopy with appendectomy video, with explanation/commentary by a laparoscopic surgeon. A pre-test and a post-test questionnaire were given before and after exposure to the video. The objective of the study was to collect students’ opinion by answering the questions in the questionnaire. All pre-test and post-test questionnaire results were analysed. The results were quantified in terms of percentage. The knowledge of anatomy of abdominal wall and peritoneal cavity improved from 62% to 91% of students after exposure to surgical video. Similarly, knowledge regarding laparoscopy improved from 37% to 85% and awareness about surgical video as an additional method of learning improved from 46% to 89%. Almost 93% of students were able to appreciate the organs and structures within intraperitoneal cavity. Hence, the clinicians/surgeons need to try their best and put in their maximum efforts to make the training of future medical graduates more efficient and knowledgeable in anatomy subject, by creating interest in learning of the subject by using such additional method (surgical videos) learning tool.