Effects of alternate dissection on anatomy learning

To address the problems associated with crowding in dissection laboratory, especially for dissections of the head and neck region, we adopted an alternate dissection strategy and explored its effects on student learning, and student perceptions of the approach. The alternate dissection approach was first introduced at our institution for dissection of the head and neck region in 2014, and was expanded to encompass the extremities in 2016. A survey on student perceptions of this new strategy was conducted at the end of anatomical courses held from 2014 to 2016, and practical and written examination scores from 2013 to 2016 were analyzed. The results showed that student perceptions were largely positive and became increasingly so each year. However, there was still some anxiety among the students regarding regions that they did not dissect themselves. Despite this, the alternate dissection strategy did not influence practical examination scores, with the exception of a transient decrease in 2014, i.e., the first year of implementation. Moreover, written examination scores improved both for the extremities and the head and neck regions in 2016. The alternate dissection strategy described herein solved the crowding problem in the dissection laboratory at our institution and had no negative effects on student learning outcomes. Therefore, this type of approach can be used to improve efficiency in dissection laboratories.