Scope of Anatomy Teaching in Problem-based Learning (PBL) Sessions of Integrated Medical Curriculum

Problem based learning (PBL) made a great impact on the methodology of teaching. The major advantage of PBL method of teaching is integration of basic and clinical sciences in an integrated curriculum. This is achieved by presenting clinical problems to students which contain learning objectives from subjects related to the given clinical problems. In recent reports deficiencies have been reported regarding quantity of anatomy content of the clinical problems which has resulted in difficulty in understanding of theanatomy. We have made an attempt to quantify the content of anatomy and its sub-disciplines in PBL curriculum by a case study method using 'documentary analysis' at School of Medicine and Health Sciences, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. From the results of our study it is apparent that learning objectives for anatomy is not sufficiently spread across all the clinical problems and there is very less coverage of the sub-disciplines of anatomy particularly osteology and embryology. The benefits of PBL method of teaching is definitely more than that of traditional method, the uneven distribution of anatomy and its sub-disciplines had a major impact on the students during their clinical years.