Improvement of anatomical knowledge and surgical skills in head and neck region - An interdisciplinary hands-on course for clinical students

Introduction: Anatomical knowledge and manual skills are required for every surgical procedure. During the regular study the students only have few opportunities to practice their surgical skills actively. To improve this situation, an interdisciplinary hands-on-course for head and neck anatomy and surgery has been set up at the RWTH Aachen University.

Materials and methods: The new course has been devised for one week with a full-time schedule. A special anatomical region has been studied each day. After an anatomical lecture, dissections under tutorial instructions took place. According to the anatomical region, a clinical lecture was given. Afterwards, surgical techniques were demonstrated and put into practice on fresh cadaver heads. To check the students' knowledge and the knowledge acquisition during the course, participants had to pass a pre- and post-test. The course was finished with an anonymous written evaluation of the course and an open feedback.

Results: The evaluations revealed a very high satisfaction of the students with the course. The post-test showed significant better results in anatomical and clinical knowledge than the pre-test. The mean result of the test was raised from 6.8 to 10.0 (p < 0.001) for the anatomical questions and from 5.9 to 10.5 (p < 0.001) for the clinical questions.

Conclusion: The new interdisciplinary hands-on course is an effective method to consolidate anatomical knowledge and to link this awareness to a better understanding of head and neck surgery. The students improve their manual skills and get more interested and more open-minded for oral and maxillofacial surgery.