The Road to DIVA

Digital Interactive Veterinary Applications

Kieron Salmon and Fay Penrose

Who we are

• Dr Kieron Salmon – Clinician teacher in Veterinary Science

• Fay Penrose – University Teacher in Veterinary Anatomy

Who we teach and what we teach…

Undergraduate• 1st year – neck and thorax, limbs, clinical skills• 2nd Year – head, G.I. tract, reproduction, urogenital,

clinical skills • 3rd Year – project students, clinical skills, • 4th and final years – neutering clinic, clinical skills

Postgraduate• CPD course material – surgical techniques and Anatomy

refreshers

How we teach anatomy

• Teach half of the class at one time i.e. 70 students. Therefore we repeat the session for the other half of the class the following week

• Fresh cadavers used.• 1 specimen per 4 students (ideally)• Classes last 1-2 days

Advantages• Fresh material is much more ‘life-like’ – much better for an

appreciation of real structures and helps students with surgical techniques

Disadvantages• Need to work reasonably quickly and intensively as specimens

will only last a few days• No chance to revisit dissections (short term – modular exams,

or long term – clinical rotations). Also, we no longer have the space for a museum so no access other revision aids.

The solution…..DIVA – a set of online (via VITAL) digital interactive photographic and video guides that directly relate to the dissection room or surgical experience. We produce all of the resources ourselves and so they are tailored to our student’s needs.

So, the problems are;Anatomy perceived as boring & difficult especially from text books. Many preclinical students struggle with the relevancy.Students are taught anatomy in preclinical years, but have forgotten it by clinics. Then they appreciate the relevance but it is difficult to revisit during rotations especially practical aspects

Anatomy Guide – Abdominal Wall

Anatomy Scenarios

• Introduced 3 years ago to bring clinical relevance to preclinical teaching

• Running ‘in the background’ to the main part of the traditional modular course

• A series of 8 clinical cases are introduced to the students, via VITAL, at the onset of the module and they are expected to work on them independently through out the course

Anatomy Scenarios

• Towards the end of the module we run an interactive 2 hour lecture discussing each case and we have ‘engineered’ the outcomes so that out of the eight cases 4 will have a medical outcome and 4 a surgical one. We then go to the dissection room and perform the relevant surgery on cadavers. Students see the clinical relevance, revise their anatomy and begin to get an appreciation of surgical techniques.

Surgical Guides

• Aimed at clinical students or vets in practice• Consist of two halves – a photographic step-

by-step guide with anatomy refresher options, and a short (ten minute) video with voiceover.

Surgery Guide – Bitch Spay

The DIVA video guides are also available in mobile format for ‘just-in-time’ learning.

Feedback from students and course delegates

• Overwhelmingly positive• They like the chance to do things at their own

pace• They appreciate that the individual guides are

made ‘in-house’ and so relevant to what we want them to know

• They are free to students (unlike textbooks)