Anatomy as a Subject and Career Choice Among Medical Students in Sudan

The present study was designed to evaluate the opinion of medical students regarding anatomy as a subject, its application in various clinical fields and to determine the choice of anatomy as a career option in Sudanese medical students.

This was a cross-sectional study among the medical students at the Faculty of Medicine at University of Dongola, located in Dongola city, Northern state, Sudan. All the students participated in the study. Each student was explained the objective of the study and a questionnaire containing 11 items was given to them. The options for answering the questionnaire were in three categories, namely, agree, neutral and disagree.

Of the total 443 students, a total of 249 (56.2%) medical students returned full filled questionnaire. Their age ranged between 17 and 28 years, with a mean of 20.7±2.5 years. In all, 120 (48.2%) were males and 129 (51.8%) were females. Most of the students (96.8%) agreed that anatomy is an important pillar of medical sciences, they also agreed on usefulness of anatomy in investigating patients with certain diseases and that they enjoyed preclinical anatomy course (62.7%). However, only 12% would take up anatomy as a career after graduation and 26.1% would like to be an anatomist if a modified integrated curriculum with other clinical specialties is introduced. Comparison of students perception of anatomy in relation to gender showed more females agreeing that anatomy was a difficult subject to understand and retain (P<0.001). As regards statement on professional satisfaction, 54.6% agreed that teaching anatomy was equally satisfying as treating a patient, 21.3% did not agree to this and 24.1% had no opinion. Learning was mainly through textbooks, atlases, lectures and rarely through audio-visual devices or radiological studies.

Very few students want to pursue their career as a teacher in anatomy; and students perceive anatomy to be a difficult subject.