Evaluating Musculoskeletal Anatomy Knowledge Among Medical Students

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of different teaching interventions on musculoskeletal anatomy knowledge among first-year medical students. DESIGN: Three sequential cohorts of first-year medical students received different musculoskeletal anatomy teaching interventions: a pre-examination review session by the anatomy department (Cohort A), a clinical skills session taught by a physiatrist (Cohort B), or both (Cohort C). Outcome measures included (1) scores from a 30-question multiple-choice anatomy final examination and (2) scores from 10 of the 30 questions relevant to the anatomy concepts covered in the clinical teaching session. RESULTS: Data were collected from all students in each cohort ( N = 231); outliers were removed using the 1.5× interquartile range method before all analyses. Cohort C scored significantly higher than Cohort B on the full examination ( P < 0.05). On the 10-question subset, Cohort C outperformed both Cohorts A and B ( P < 0.05). No other comparisons reached statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: A combined approach using both pre-examination review by the anatomy department and clinical teaching led by a physiatrist (intervention C) significantly improved musculoskeletal anatomy examination performance. These findings support synchronized, multimodal teaching to enhance anatomy knowledge. Future studies should assess long-term effects on clinical skills and knowledge retention.