Read time: 5 minutes

Em Lloyd (Year 4) and Vikram Thirupathirajan (Year 6) provide their advice on making the most of dissection lab sessions.

Anatomy can be a daunting subject. Not only is there a vast breadth of knowledge to learn (just look at the thickness of your Grey’s Anatomy for Students!), it can also be tricky to know how to make the most of your time in the dissection labs. In certain modules (Y2 MMB – we’re looking at you) you can have hours each week timetabled in the lab and it’s important that this time isn’t a waste for you.

One of the most effective ways to learn and remember anatomy is to be able to visualise it – anatomy dissections do just that. In addition to this, exams can include dissection images in your questions, so the more you engage, the more you’ll get out of it.

So, whether it’s your first time ever in the anatomy lab, or if you’re just looking to make the most of your next session, read on for our best advice on how to learn anatomy in the dissection room.

Set goals for each session

The dissection lab has an impressive variety of resources available for you to explore and learn from. This includes cadavers for group dissection, pro-sections, radiological images, models, and more. Some specific sessions will even have specialised equipment on offer that you can use to really apply your anatomical knowledge, such as endoscopes or ultrasound machines.

However, the huge range can be overwhelming as well as exciting. To help you stay focused and not feel lost, it’s a good idea to set goals for each session on what you want to learn and which resources you want to use. For example, “This session I will aim to dissect the anterior thoracic wall and look through some radiological images of the thorax”.

Each session is accompanied by a dissection guide on how to carry out the cadaveric dissection and which structures you should be able to identify. If you are unsure where to start with setting goals, begin by having a look at the dissection guide and decide on an aim for your cadaveric dissection. For example, “This session I will try to identify the structures of the brachial plexus.”  

Failing to prepare = preparing to fail

To be in the best position when you walk into the anatomy lab, you need to have at least a basic idea of what you’re about to dissect. Even ten minutes of preparation will help you to make the most of your session. So, we would recommend that you aim to read up on the relevant pages of the anatomy textbook and review the corresponding lecture. This means you don’t waste any precious time in the dissection lab and are instead able to spend that time applying your new knowledge to the cadavers and pro-sections. Of course, there are only 24 hours in the day and we know that it can be tricky to find time between all of your pre-clinical lectures and other commitments. At a minimum, gain some familiarity with the names of the structures you will be dissecting in that session. 

Learn the language

Practice using anatomical terminology, such as proximal, distal, superficial, deep, etc. You can apply this in everything you do, from interpreting images to talking through dissecting your cadaver with your group. By getting into the habit of using this fundamental terminology, it will become like second nature to you. And take it from two clinical year students – it will 100% help you when you get on the wards.

If you, like many of us, are someone who struggles to grasp new terminology immediately, make an active effort to learn it. Our best advice would be to bring a small notebook with you into the dissection lab so that you can make brief notes (technical tip: keep a separate pen to take to the dissection lab to avoid getting formaldehyde-laced pens and affecting your other note-taking) on any new content or terminology that you don’t understand. If you keep adding to your notes, it can act as a valuable revision resource that you can quickly review at the start of each dissection session. 

Work together

A great way to engage with your anatomy learning is to do it with someone else – whether that’s dissecting, or looking at pro-sections and models. Discussing things as you go encourages active rather than passive learning, and by working with a peer, you can quiz each other on specific structures and relations. Having a friend who you regularly work with also means that you can hold each other accountable for engaging with the session, and encourage one another when learning new topics. 

As well as your peers, you have the opportunity to engage with the anatomy demonstrators and near-peer tutors, or ‘blue coats’. Be proactive – ask them for their best tips to learn, or ask them to explain something that you’re not sure about. If an anatomy demonstrator comes over to actively quiz you, don’t fear this. It can feel daunting to directly answer questions when you’re not sure, but engaging with this is a fantastic way to learn. 

Don’t neglect pro-sections

The main focus of your anatomy laboratory sessions will obviously be the group dissection of your cadaver. However, it’s important to recognise that even with the most expert dissection, you won’t be able to identify everything. This is where pro-sections are invaluable to your learning – and there is a good chance that they will come up in your exams too. In particular, you should consider studying the pro-sections for your sessions on lung and heart anatomy, pelvis and posterior abdomen, skull base, and the pharynx. 

We would recommend that you pay attention to the announcements from the lead anatomy demonstrator at the start of the session – they will let you know what resources are available for you to use. Make sure you set aside some time during the session to study the pro-sections that are available; ideally, bring a friend along with you to quiz one another.

We hope that you have found this article helpful and that you are able to put some of our advice into practice in your next dissection session.

Read Time: 6 minutes

Vikram Thirupathirajan (Y5, Education Officer for UCL Surgical Society) provides his views on the benefits of teaching at medical school and how to get involved in teaching as a medical student.

As a doctor, you will be a teacher- regardless of what specialty you go into. No matter what stage of your career you are at, part of your role will be to conduct some form of teaching to those in an earlier stage of the career to you. So it does not come as a surprise when teaching forms one of the highest-scoring criteria for a medical portfolio. 

In addition to helping with your portfolio, teaching, particularly as a medical student, has several other benefits attached to it.

Teaching is the highest form of learning

This is a unique benefit for teaching as a medical student, as medical school is a key time when you will be learning some core concepts that will stick with you for life. There is scientific evidence to suggest that teaching someone else about a particular topic is arguably the best way of retaining information, which makes sense if you think about it- in order to be able to teach someone something, you will have learnt that something to a high standard yourself. Especially in a course where what you are taught will be needed for life, being involved with teaching will help you consolidate that knowledge for yourself as you teach it to others.

Starting early sets you up for life

In a profession where teaching is incredibly prevalent, being able to master the skills early is very useful. What better place to start, than at medical school itself? This is the place where what you teach, and the skills required will be most transferable to when you teach as a doctor. 

You become an organised medical student

Teaching at medical school is on the whole, voluntary, and requires extra time to do it. Naturally, setting aside time for teaching, particularly if you are organising the teaching yourself, will help you learn how to prioritise and how to schedule. This will in turn make you organise your own studying and you’ll notice yourself becoming more productive and efficient.

Getting into teaching as a medical student

Have I convinced you enough to get into teaching? UCLMS offers a wealth of opportunities for medical students to undertake teaching at medical school.

Join a student society

This is one of the easiest ways to get involved in teaching. This is a very good starting point to get a flavour of what teaching as a medical student is like. You can then build on this afterwards to take up roles in education subcommittees in the society and/or onto the main committee as the education lead for the society. Taking up such roles will enable you to organise and introduce widely recognised teaching across the medical school. AGMs are currently upcoming this month so if a committee role interests you, do consider applying. Applications to be a tutor for events vary in terms of when they go live, so do keep an eye out for updates, or contact the society’s education lead.

Most sports clubs, in addition to UCL Medical and Surgical Societies conduct teaching for younger year students. For preclinical year students, Medical Society tends to teach physiology-related topics, while Surgical Society teaches anatomy topics. Sports clubs will conduct more informal teaching on all topics. For clinical years, most societies will conduct teaching on all things clinical medicine and surgery.

Set up your own teaching

Alternatively, you can independently start up your own teaching series on your own or together with a few other medical students (I would recommend the latter). Whilst getting a wide reach with this may take longer to achieve (but it definitely will happen given the age of social media), you have more freedom and flexibility in when you start, what you teach and can truly make it your own thing.

Setting up your own teaching or being on a committee role for education also gives you the opportunity to try and introduce something new- embrace this! Whilst teaching the same topics in the same way is good to reinforce memory, it can limit you to what you teach. Therefore, look for gaps; if a particular topic isn’t taught very well, focus on that. Alternatively, try a different approach to teaching something. For example, some students in the past have taught by the traditional method of going through each topic one at a time, whilst others have approached it as a case-scenario. Trying different ways offers a new perspective to learning content, which is very useful given that medicine is such an evolving field. Furthermore, introducing innovative teachings can form a basis for research or audits.

Teaching with the medical school faculty

The medical school themselves also have opportunities available for teaching. Notably is the Anatomy Lab Near Peer Tutor (the Blue-coats). Agreed, the anatomy lab is on hold at the moment due to the current climate, but it is something that definitely will return. This opportunity is available for third year medical students and involves being student tutors to help teach and answer any questions that students in years one and two have about their anatomy dissection and related topics during their Anatomy Lab sessions. Information about this releases in the last week before the start of the new academic year- the medical school will email you themselves. 

On a university-wide scale is the Transition Mentor Scheme. This involves mentoring students in their first year, part of which involves teaching. Student societies are increasingly adopting mentoring systems; mentoring is a brilliant way if you would like to be involved in widely recognised teaching but would like the freedom in choosing and organising what you would like to teach. Applications for this also open in term 3.

Though less traditional forms of teaching, the medical school’s education faculty also have numerous projects on offer. Examples of such projects include being question authors for formative exams, being involved in student Q&A and teaching for formative exams you helped write etc. Why, this very blog itself is a project from the medical school’s education faculty. Again, this will be widely recognised by the medical school, who will commend your work as necessary with certificates. Arguably more importantly, you will build contacts with the medical school faculty, get further opportunities and much better insights into the workings of your MB BS course. If you are interested in being involved in a project, let either myself, Anush, Jess or Maddie know and we can direct you appropriately.

Creating the future doctors 

This is the reason why the idea of teaching exists to begin with- to pass on your knowledge to future generations. Medicine is a subject where being accurate and competent is important, and so younger-year students gaining insight into what you learnt and how is crucial. In fact, students will most relate to you, the older year medical students, because what you have experienced will be very similar to what they experience, and so you will be able to relate to students’ challenges best.

Therefore, by getting involved in teaching, you play a part in cultivating the next cohort of competent medical students and future doctors, both a huge accomplishment and honour.

Introducing our first in our new Spotlight On series. Kicking it off, Vikram Thirupathirajan, a fifth-year medical student, interviews Maria Georgi, UCL Surgical Society President, and Yousif Ali, former RUMS president. Watch as we explore the successes, challenges, and advice for the future faces of the student union!

Read time: 6 minutes

Vikram Thirupathirajan, a fifth-year medical student, shares his experience and tips on working from home as a medical student.

Medicine cannot be studied purely from a book or a computer. To understand its breadth and depth entirely, I’d find myself engaging in face-to-face small-group teaching – be this in the Anatomy Lab and CAL sessions in preclinical years, or clerking patients and bedside teaching in clinical years. 

So it’s safe to say the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes made to everyone’s way of daily living has caused studying medicine to take a bit of a hit too. Even after lockdown’s ease, safety is important, meaning UCL’s style of teaching has also changed for this academic year at least. 

Therefore, the standard bookwork that we all do may not suffice, as you might find yourself, as I did, having to also cater for the learning that you’d normally do away from the desk. So here are the four things that I did to try and make it work. 

One: Make your routine, break your routine

You will find this step in almost every work-from-home post. It’s important.

Before the pandemic times, everyone had a structure to their average day; at a particular time, you’d have to be at a certain place. Being sat at a desk for a long time would often make me lose track of time and with no routine and mindlessly working, I get less efficient. 

Therefore, make it a routine to attend all online teaching live, rather than watching a recording after. Make it a routine to schedule time each day to do asynchronous Moodle activities that are designed for you to complete in your own time. Make it a routine to schedule time each day to do your own studying. A routine doesn’t need to be stating each specific task that needs to be done every day. Rather, it just needs to acknowledge that you have time set aside for each type of activity – the main aim is to get structure to your working day.

However, yesterday won’t be like today and today won’t be like tomorrow – the unpredictability of it is what makes life exciting! So be prepared to break your routine at times. Sometimes online teaching may get rescheduled, or any face-to-face activities you do get scheduled coincides with online teaching. It’s fine if this happens; don’t get too focused on sticking to the routine – a balance is essential.

Two: The internet is a goldmine

Whilst no book or digital resources can beat learning the practical side of medicine in person, there are resources that can still help and provide a strong foundation. You can then build on this later once restrictions ease.

A key part of the course in the preclinical years is the Anatomy Lab. Two main resources aid in visualising anatomy well. One is Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy. This presents anatomy using dissections and prosections, which give as realistic an anatomy dissection experience as possible online. The second is using a 3D anatomy model application: UCL has access to The Human Anatomy Atlas from the Visible Body company available for students to use for free. This also allows you to visualise anatomy like you would in the Anatomy Lab.

In clinical years, the most important part of learning is being able to speak to patients, take a history and do an examination (which is also tested in preclinical years in the OCaPE). A useful resource for finding patients’ perspectives of their symptoms is Speaking Clinically – which has a database of videos of patients describing their symptoms for their different illnesses. For examinations, Moodle has numerous videos and guides for the different clinical examinations, which you can access and practice yourself or with peers in your social bubble. Geeky Medics is another invaluable resource, that has guides for clinical examination, and also for other practical skills including communication, data interpretation and essential procedures such as cannulation.

Another key thing is following a patient throughout their journey through the healthcare system. This is something that would be covered in small-group teaching and consultation clinics. Capsule is a resource that has a database of cases covering just this, through multiple-choice questions. This helps you learn all there is to know about the different diseases, i.e. symptoms, investigations, diagnosis, management.

Links to online resources:

Acland’s Video Atlas: https://aclandanatomy.com/

Visible Body Human Anatomy Atlas: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-ejournal/2017/12/22/ucl-now-has-access-to-visible-body-human-anatomy-atlas-2017/

Speaking Clinically: https://speakingclinically.co.uk/

Geeky Medics: https://geekymedics.com/

Capsule: https://learn.capsule.ac.uk/login

Three: Teamwork makes the dream work

The aim of medicine being a collaborative course still hasn’t changed, and collaboration need not be in person anymore, considering the ample amount of technology available for video calling. After using it every week for six months myself, it was without doubt one of the top three reasons I passed my fourth year exams, the other two being interacting actively in all the teaching, and lots of practice questions. Therefore, I 100% recommend being in touch with your friends and peers, in person if they’re in your social bubble, but definitely online through video calling. 

All students can use their UCL emails to get free access to Microsoft Teams. Not only will keeping in touch prevent loneliness, but also collaborating is a very effective way of learning. Having regular calls to teach each other a certain topic has been the standard approach by my year’s students. Not only does this mean you learn the knowledge very well (teaching is one of the highest levels of learning!), but also ensures you are disciplined because essentially each time you have a group session is a deadline for you to learn a topic for. 

Four: There’s more to life than medicine

Working from home can get dangerous due to the place where you relax and where you work being essentially the same. This can blur the distinction between the two and we end up subconsciously doing one more than the other with an improper balance. 

This brings onto my final two points: Firstly, ensuring you have a separate dedicated workspace and a different space for relaxing. Your workspace can be anything really – from a section of your bed, to a desk or an entire room. As long as there is a definite distinction, you’ll have a track of when you’re actually working and when you’re not.

And finally, more important than ever, ensure to take plenty of time out for other activities – be this going outside for a walk, pursuing a hobby, anything. Most of us found ourselves taking a break doing something that doesn’t involve a screen or a book as we already spend so long with those while we work. Not only will this uphold your health, but also now, when we spend most of our time in a space doing activities that seem to be disconnected with the world, we will ensure we stay aware of it.