Medical education and pandemic: Assessment of the changes imposed by the restrictions of the pandemic in the teaching-learning of the anatomy according to first-year medicine students

Abstract

To afford the pandemic restrictions when the universitary year even started was a great challenge for first-year medical students. Suddenly universities were closed and all academic activity had to be reorganized. The objective of this study is to assess the opinion of Anatomy students who developed the course in 2020 without face-to-face activities and those who are doing this year with little attendance, exclusively for the practical part. An online survey was conducted to evaluate the factors that influenced their anatomical formation during a period of such particular conditions. We determined 3 groups: students who studied in 2020, those who are currently studying and those who started in 2020 and return to study in 2021. Most of them had not previously had a virtual study experience. The classes assessment was medium and the main problem was the lack of access to bodies and cadaveric material for the study of the practical aspects, followed by anxiety, lack of motivation and concentration for the study, lack of interaction with classmates and professors. The most outstanding advantage was the saving of time and, to a lesser extent, reduction of costs. In conclusion, students considered the most important loss was the lack of access to corpses and cadaveric material, although most of them had expectations of recovering the experience by different ways. In general, they considered the pandemic will have serious consequences on their medical training.