Attitudes of Anatomy Faculties in Medical Schools toward Horizontal Integration of Courses on Anatomical Sciences

Introduction: Theoretical courses on anatomical sciences are taught through integrative or regional approaches. It seems that integration helps teachers to convey the materials better to medical students, especially during their clinical stage. Therefore, we decided to study the viewpoints of faculty members of anatomy department in medical universities of Iran toward the horizontal integration of anatomical sciences. Method: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on faculty members of anatomy whose universities had performed Horizontal Integration for anatomical sciences courses, in year 2011. Using simple random sampling, a number of anatomy faculty members who had participated in National Congress of Anatomy were selected. Study instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire, including questions on faculty members’ familiarity with Horizontal Integration for anatomy courses, availability of facilities for this integration, and their level of satisfaction with integration program and their opinion regarding the temporal priority of lessons. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: According to 16 (33.3%) of participants, integration had a little efficacy in better understanding of adjacent anatomical elements. Twenty four (50%) of the participants stated their familiarity with the process of integration as high and very high. Twenty four (50%) teachers were highly and very highly agree to teach lessons systematically. Eighteen (37.5%) teachers highly agreed with integration of embryology and anatomy. Respondents classified the temporal priority of courses as anatomy, histology, embryology, and physiology, respectively. Conclusion: According to the fact that a half of teachers agreed to the horizontal integration of basic science courses in high and very high levels, and considering the results of this study, it is suggested to develop the curriculum and lesson plans based on this prioritization schedule including anatomy, histology, embryology, and physiology respectively.