Adaptation of anatomy’s practical lectures for Medical School during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This work pursue to report the experience of active learning in medical training regarding the practical activities concerning the subject of Human Anatomy, which are traditionally held in person at the Anatomy Laboratory, but needed adaptations to an distance learning model due to the circumstance phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive study was carried out, of the experience report type, relative to the developed work in a public federal institution of higher education during the remote activities developed in 2020 with the first semester students from Medical School. The educational action was implemented by the teaching assistants (TAs), under the orientation of the Professor responsible for the subject, inspired by flipped classroom approach, learning in small groups and learning in action-reflection-action, adjusted to a remote teaching model structured through online platforms and visual and written resources. The challenges faced by the students in this learning experience of Human Anatomy, as well as the introduction of teaching concerning the TAs, were potentiated during the COVID-19 pandemic, nonetheless, the study noted that the use of active methodologies and the extensive participation of the TAs, guided by the model of empathetic teaching, made the learning process easier for the first-year students, although there was limitations regarding the distance learning model of an essentially practical subject.