Cadaver Rounds: A Comprehensive Exercise That Integrates Clinical Context Into Medical Gross Anatomy

PROBLEMThe purpose of medical schools is to train students to care for patients; however, the temporal and conceptual gap between course work and patient care may induce students to undervalue preclinical course work, thereby decreasing learning and retention. Bringing clinical context into preclinical courses reduces this problem, and many preclinical programs incorporate “cameo” appearances of clinical material. In contrast, the authors describe a comprehensive program at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine that uses the cadaver as the students’ first patient to embed clinical context within preclinical anatomy. APPROACHAs the students’ first patient, cadavers undergo modified physical exams, whole-body computed tomography scans, and pathology sample analysis. Students log daily dissection observations onto a “patient chart.” Group findings are integrated, on a self-directed basis, into a final grand rounds–style presentation (“Cadaver Rounds”) requiring students to synthesize longitudinally collected observations into a plausible clinical condition likely experienced by the cadaver-patient when alive. The entire exercise uses few additional contact hours (about six) and runs concurrently with the existing medical curriculum. OUTCOMESAccording to course surveys used to assess students’ perceptions of the relevance and effectiveness of Cadaver Rounds (2015–2017), the students’ experience was highly positive. Participation by faculty and clinicians has been enthusiastic. NEXT STEPSThe authors hope both to identify additional authentic clinical tasks to import into the dissection lab and to partner with other programs to adopt and evaluate this clinically centered approach to anatomy.