ARTICLE #2 | 21
ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE CULTURAL BELIEFS OF MEDICAL STUDENTS ON
THE CADAVERIC DISSECTION IN GROSS ANATOMY
Design of the study:
This study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches
to evaluate medical students’ experiences in the gross anatomy
laboratory. The participants were first-year medical students who
were enrolled in the course over two consecutive academic years.
Eighty medical students were recruited at the close of the course
and their consent was gained via e-mail. They were of various
cultural backgrounds with a mean age of 24.1 ± 2.6 years. The
demographics are displayed in Table 1. 41.3% (n=33) were male and
58.8% (n=47) were female.
The anatomy course occurred over 17 weeks and consisted of 52
lecture hours (embryology and gross anatomy) and 58 laboratory
hours of cadaveric dissection. Before the start of each laboratory
session, students were debriefed for a short period to keep them
up-to-date on the progress of dissection. The study participants
were asked to complete a three-part online subjective assessment
survey (survey created using Google forms, see appendix A). It was
comprised of variables that related to 1) the dissection experience,
using various positive and negative descriptors; 2) cultural identity
and importance; and 3) learning outcomes from the dissection
experience. Likert scales were used for all questions, and students
were also given the opportunity to offer free-text responses to
selected questions. Participants were divided into two groups
based on personal importance of cultural identity as evidenced
by responses to Item 1 (“My culture is important to me”) in the
Assessment of Cultural Identity scale. The two groups identified
were the cultural group (Group 1, N = 44, Likert responses 4, 5)
and the non-cultural group (Group 2, N = 36 Likert responses 1,
2, 3). A number of psychometric tests were used to assess each
individual’s perception of a potentially stressful situation. The ALE
Scale is a reliable and valid psychometric tool that assesses the
outcome and the positive and negative emotional reactions to a
potentially stressful situation in terms of threat, challenge, or loss
(Ferguson et al., 1999). The ALE scale assigns a numerical score
that is dependent on the extent to which participants experienced
16 different emotions, such as fear, worry and excitement, when
appraising a life event. The three dimensions of the ALE Scale
have good psychometric properties, with high internal consistency
estimates. They have been used previously to study the impact of
cadaver dissection on first-year medical students in multiple studies
(O’Carroll et al., 2002; Dempster et al., 2006). We used a modified
ALE scale in part A of our survey entitled “Appraisal of Dissection
Experience” which was built on positive and negative emotions as
the main dimensions. In this scale ranging from 1 to 5; (1) meant “not
at all”, (2) “a little, (3) “moderately”, (4) “much” and (5) very much.