Abstract:

During centuries Anatomy has been a cornerstone of medical education but in recent years has initiated its decline. Balances between the learning of a detailed description from the anatomist and assimilation and application of surgical anatomy have yet to be established as the methods of teaching undergo a continuous metamorphosis. For doctors, the human body is the main focus of their investigation and daily intervention; for this reason, under the European Higher Education Area, it is necessary to establish an effective method to teach anatomy fusing the anatomical detail and surgical practice together.

At the Universitat Jaume I, where the Grade of Medicine was recently created, the great amount of knowledge generated during last years lead to consider new ways in the formation of Health Professionals including Physicians and Medical Doctors. The classical scheme in Medicine curricula is based on a first period of basic medical sciences followed by a clinical theoretical and practical phase. Over this scheme, it is emerging in new universities integrated curricula in which medical sciences became integrated in each other in order to give a global view of human body in which Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology, Medicine and Surgery are taken at the, more or less same time in order to obtain a more practical achievement of competences. The integration is being done horizontally and vertically. Horizontal integration in our field means that Anatomy and Physiology are taken together. Vertical integration means that Anatomy needs to be integrated with clinical disciplines. Horizontal integration can only be done by assuming that Physiologists, Anatomists and others are sharing basic principles and common teaching. In that case specialization does not come from discipline but from the organ or system that is being shown. Vertical integration means that pathology and clinics need to be also shown in first courses together with the basic knowledge of structure and function.

We have studied the percentage of vertical and horizontal integration in the Grade of Medicine in University of Jaume I. Our results show that while integration from up (clinics) to down (basic) is easy, the integration from down to up becomes difficult, what impairs the flow of the new knowledge from bench to bed.

In summary, although integration offers new possibilities for teaching in medicine, strong changes need to be implemented in order to assess that basic knowledge be effectively integrated into clinical disciplines. These changes affects mainly to a continuous formation of the teaching body.

This work is being supported by the program Projectes de innovació educative de la Universitat Jaume I.

Keywords:

Coordination, integration, medicine, anatomy.