Anatomy in the Minds of Health Sciences Undergraduates: A Metaphor Analysis

Abstract

Background As with all healthcare professionals, anatomy is an indispensable course for nursing and midwifery students in order to be successful in other courses and in their professional lives. This survey-based study was conducted with nursing and midwifery students from the Faculty of Health Sciences to find out their perceptions about the “Anatomy” concept through metaphors. Methods The metaphor analysis technique was used for the study. This techniques is used as a phenomenological research method as part of a qualitative research approach. The study was conducted between January and February 2021 at a faculty of health sciences of a public university in Turkey. The study universe and sample consisted of the students from the Faculty of Health Sciences of our university. Among a total of 260 nursing and midwifery students, 200 students voluntarily agreed to participate in the study survey. Since 4 students failed to produce valid metaphors, the study was completed with 196 students. The study data were collected using a brief questionnaire on demographic characteristics and by prompting the students to complete the metaphorical statement “Anatomy is like … because…”. Results The nursing students produced negative metaphors more commonly than the midwifery students. Despite this, in general, positive metaphors were predominantly produced by the students from both departments. Second year students were found to have more positive views about anatomy than first year students. Conclusions Since anatomy is a fundamental discipline for healthcare professionals, the perceptions of nursing and midwifery students about anatomy are very important. While the metaphors of “taking a breath” and “world atlas” about anatomy shows the awareness of the significance of anatomy among the students, metaphors of “ocean”, “abyss” and “desert” are striking examples that indicate how desperate they feel about learning anatomy.

Metaphors of Midwifery Students about the Concepts of “Midwife” And “Midwifery Profession”

“…Akademik literatürde ebelik bölümü öğrencileri ile ilgili birkaç metafor çalışması vardır. Bu çalışmalarda öğrencilerin; doğum eylemine (17), anatomi dersine (18) ve ebelik ve diğer üniversite öğrencilerinin ebe kavramına (19) yönelik metaforları değerlendirilmiştir. Bu araştırma ise farklı olarak ebelik öğrencilerinin ebe ve ebelik mesleği kavramlarına yönelik tutumları üzerine derinlemesine bir şekilde yoğunlaşmıştır.…”