Course Design

Gross Anatomy II is a one-semester comparative anatomy course that follows a course in canine anatomy.  The course is a team-taught lecture/dissection course.  Dr. Wally Cash and I share most of the course responsibilities.  Dr. Cash is the course coordinator and has ultimate responsibility for course content.  This course builds on the course in canine anatomy, in which students learn the anatomy of the dog in detail, as well as anatomical terminology and concepts that directly apply to the comparative anatomy course.  During presentations in Gross Anatomy II, other instructors and I often refer to information learned in the previous course. 

Gross Anatomy II is primarily a foundation course, however; information learned will be applied in future courses in equine and bovine medicine and surgery, and will also be necessary for diagnosis and treatment during the clinical year and beyond.  All of the instructors make every effort to relate material in this course to its future utility in the practice of veterinary medicine.  Students report a high interest in and motivation for taking the class, because they know they will need to rely on this information in their practice careers (at least those going into large animal practice).  I teach (by choice) the sections on the anatomy of the limbs of the horse and cow.  I did not develop a separate syllabus for my section of the course.  However, within the portion of the course for which I lecture, I have considerable latitude concerning content and presentation of that material.  All of the instructors use electronic presentation software (PowerPoint) for lectures, and have done so for several years.

The dissection schedule is determined largely by convenience of approach to the body regions, and the lecture schedule follows the dissection schedule.  We have an in-house dissection guide, developed by one of Dr. Cash’s predecessors, that has been in the process of revision for the past several years.  The intent is that each day’s lecture complements/clarifies the dissection assignment for that day.  Student assignments consist of daily dissection assignments and a daily quiz.  Students must finish the dissection assignment and study the lecture notes each day because of the quiz.  The quizzes have approximately half written and half cadaver questions.  Written questions generally cover lecture material while cadaver questions cover dissection material, although there is considerable overlap.  One problem I have noted with this course is occasional frustration with insufficient time for completion of the dissection. 

I have responsibility for a difficult segment of Gross Anatomy II, due to the amount of detail that must be covered.  When given the opportunity to choose which portion of the course I wanted to lecture in, I chose the legs, because an understanding of the anatomy of the limbs is so critically important for practitioners, and I knew I would find presentation of that material rewarding.  Within the context of the course structure, then, my goal was to construct lectures that enable students to understand the clinical importance of what they will learn in the laboratory that day.