Integrating Clinical Reasoning Skills in a Pre-professional Undergraduate Human Anatomy Course

Clinically integrated curricula in health science education has been shown to promote the development of problem-solving schema and positively impact knowledge acquisition. Despite its’ purported benefits, this type of curricula can impose a high cognitive load, which may negatively impact novice learners’ knowledge acquisition and problem-solving schema development. Introducing explicit clinical reasoning instruction within pre-professional undergraduate basic science courses may limit factors that increase cognitive load, enhance knowledge acquisition, and foster developing clinical problem-solving skills. This study, conducted over the Fall and Spring semesters of the 2018–2019 school year, sought to evaluate whether the implementation of a clinical reasoning instructional intervention within a clinically integrated pre-professional undergraduate general human anatomy course influenced students’ acquisition of anatomical knowledge and development of clinical problem-solving skills. Results of the study were mixed regarding the acquisition of anatomical knowledge. Both the intervention and comparison groups performed similarly on multiple choice examinations of anatomical knowledge. However, the clinical reasoning intervention positively impacted students’ ability to apply clinical reasoning skills to anatomically based clinical case studies. Results from M\mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance comparing scores on Written Clinical Reasoning Assessments revealed a significant interaction between time and group affiliation, with the groups receiving the interventions outperforming the comparison groups: Fall, P < 0.001; Spring, P < 0.001. The results of this study may imply that explicit clinical reasoning instruction within a clinically integrated undergraduate Human Anatomy course could hold potential for fostering students’ early clinical reasoning skills.