The European Union Seventh Framework Programme.

Contemporary textbooks of anatomy and surface anatomy were evaluated to ascertain whether they were gender-neutral. The evidence of this, and previous studies, suggests that, both in terms of imagery and text, many textbooks lack neutrality. To further investigate such matters, we provided second-year medical students studying at Cardiff University (n = 293) and at the Paris Descartes University (n = 142) during the 2011-2012 academic year with a questionnaire inviting them to address the possibility that social/gender factors hinder the dispassionate representation of anatomy. Ethical approval was obtained from both Cardiff and Paris universities. Eighty-six percent of the students at Cardiff and 39% at Paris Descartes responded and provided data for analysis. The hypothesis tested is that medical students perceive a gender bias that is reflected in the books they read and the tuition they receive. Our findings suggest that, while students recognise the importance of gender issues and do not wish to associate with sexism, most are unaware of the possible negative aspects of sexism within anatomy. In this respect, the findings do not support our hypothesis. Nevertheless, we recommended that teachers of anatomy and authors of anatomy textbooks should be aware of the possibility of adverse effects on professional matters relating to equality and diversity issues.

If it is accepted that increasingly we live within a consumerist society then axiomatically 'ownership' of medical training does not belong to political authorities (whether governmental or medical), nor to the medical profession, nor indeed to the teachers, educationalists and even the students but to the laypersons in society who are patients or potential patients (viz. the clients/recipients of medical care). As yet, however, there has been no attempt to evaluate how much anatomy laypersons know and what their attitudes are towards the importance of anatomy in medicine. By means of a questionnaire, we have conducted a survey of laypersons' attitudes to anatomy in the U.K. and France. Results suggest that, regardless of gender, age, socioeconomic groupings, level of education, or in the presence of some cultural differences between the U.K. and France, laypersons have a reasonable understanding and knowledge of gross anatomy (being weakest on understanding function) and have strong beliefs that gross anatomy is crucial for medical education, holding the view that the medical profession's esteem would be diminished if anatomy were not a significant part of the medical curriculum and if human cadaveric material was not employed in medical training. Thus, laypersons' perceptions about the importance of gross anatomy should be factored into the organisation of medical training, not just to provide important information and skills for future medical/surgical practitioners, but also to help maintain the esteem of the medical profession.

Many studies have been undertaken to assess the attitudes of medical students to the clinical importance of gross anatomy. However, much less is known about their attitudes toward the clinical importance of histology. Using Thurstone and Chave methods to assess attitudes, over 2,000 early stage medical students across Europe provided responses to a survey that tested the hypothesis that the students have a high regard for histology's clinical relevance. Regardless of the university and country surveyed, and of the teaching methods employed for histology, our findings were not consistent with our hypotheses, students providing a more moderate assessment of histology's importance compared to gross anatomy but more positive than their attitudes toward embryology. Histology should play a significant role in medical education in terms of appreciating not just normal structure and function but also pathology. We conclude that teachers of histology should pay special attention to informing newly-recruited medical students of the significant role played by histology in attaining clinical competence and in underpinning their status as being learned members of a healthcare profession. This work was conducted under the auspices of the Trans-European Pedagogic Research Group (TEPARG). Clin. Anat. 30:635-643, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.