THE WAY TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING PEDIATRIC STUDENTS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN ANATOMY

Abstract

Since 2017, the Department of Human Anatomy has developed and taught a selective course “Anatomical Features of Children” in addition to the basic discipline “Human Anatomy”. The total workload of the discipline is 72 hours or 2 credits. According to the curriculum of pediatric students, this discipline is studied in the 3rd semester immediately after the basic discipline; on completion students pass the exam on the basic discipline “Human Anatomy”. When developing an educational program for a selective course, the teaching staff of the Department proceeded from the idea that students, having studied the basic discipline, had already accumulated certain skills and abilities in systematic human anatomy. Additional hours allocated to the selective course will allow them to deepen their knowledge of the anatomical features of children and get ready to assess morphofunctional, physiological states and pathological processes in the human body for solving professional tasks, which they will have to demonstrate during their midterm exam in “Human Anatomy”. Practical classes in the selective course take the form of seminars, with pre known questions, often formulated similarly to the examination ones, and case study. When presenting the answer, the student must be able to analyze, argue, and evaluate the information that he or she owns and one given by a teacher or a colleague. For effective mastery of the subject and further professional improvement, we strive to develop students’ self education skills. The emphasis is on developing the ability to independently use various information sources to gain knowledge about the structure of the human body and mastering the anatomical nomenclature. But one should always remember that the student’s independent work should be directed and controlled, only in this case can we talk about its effectiveness. The University’s educational portal allows doing this. After a few years we have analyzed and evaluated the effectiveness of the introduction of the selective course at the Pediatrics Faculty. The evaluation criteria were based on indicators of the average grade and quality performance in the discipline. These data allow us to speak about positive dynamics of progress of the pediatric students.