Peer-to-peer Tuturing Activities in Human Anatomy Exploiting Digital Tools

Since Academic Year 2023/2024 first year medicine students were provided with the opportunity to exploit interactive tools for macroscopic anatomy teaching activities via peer-to-peer tutoring: fourth- and fifth-year students in Medicine and Surgery were trained to take care of this. First year medical students (from the Italian [n=160] and International Course [n=40]) were divided into groups (10-12 students each); they group met with a tutor for at least 3 sessions lasting 2 hours with a predefined topic: thorax (topic 1), abdomen/pelvis (topic 2), neuroanatomy (topic 3). Moreover, each group participated in a session without a predefined topic during which they freely explored the teaching tool under supervision. This was not a compulsory activity and was carried out in students’ free hours during the 2nd semester; a satisfactory questionnaire was collected at the end of the initiative; satisfaction for each time was rated on 0-10 scale (0: no satisfaction at all; 10: the highest possible satisfaction). 75 students decided to participate overall and a total of 47 complete questionnaires were available for evaluation. More than 70% of students rated the whole initiative as high satisfactory (i.e., score higher than 6) and 85% of students would have suggested others to participate. Topic 3 was the one receiving the highest scores. More than 85% of students replied that this initiative increased their willingness to use the Anatomy room for independent study. For the present Academic Year the initiative is being further expanded: students are having more sessions without a predefined topic, on top of the same topics assigned last year. More students decided to opt for this adjunctive opportunity (120/170 for the Italian course and 40/48 for the international course). We are collecting more detailed information on satisfaction and effectiveness and currently the response rate to questionnaires is more than 90%; preliminary results are even more positive than last year.