A scoping review on the trends of digital anatomy education, by Adnan and Xiao (2023)
Digital technologies are changing the landscape of anatomy education. This review attempted to reveal the trend of digital anatomy education across medical science disciplines. There was a clear discipline-dependent preference in the choice and employment of digital anatomy education. AR and VR were the more commonly adopted digital tools for medical and surgical anatomy education, while 3D printing is more broadly used for nursing, allied health and dental health education compared to other digital resources. Digital modalities were predominantly adopted for applied interactive anatomy education and primarily in advanced anatomy curricula such as regional anatomy and neuroanatomy. Moreover, there was a steep increase in VR anatomy combining digital simulation for surgical anatomy training. There is a consistent increase in the adoption of digital modalities in anatomy education across all included health disciplines. AR and VR anatomy incorporating digital simulation will play a more prominent role in medical education of the future. Combining multimodal digital resources that supports blended and interactive learning will further modernize anatomy education, moving medical education further away from its didactic history.
The use of digital resources in the new learning environment has drastically influenced how human topographic anatomy is taught and assessed. An array of digital technologies for anatomy teaching have been recently adopted in medical and health science schools in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. This resulted from a surging demand for digital anatomy technologies in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and required rapid digital up-skilling of anatomists. Despite the wide adoption of digital technologies in anatomy teaching, there is little comprehensive information on the selection and implementation of these digital resources from a practical perspective. Based on the authors’ experience and supported by literature, this article describes their implementation of digital anatomy resources for teaching gross anatomy in eleven Australian universities. This paper highlights the advantages and limitations that the authors encountered and their recommendations for using these current digital technologies in anatomy teaching.
