Anatomy Now 06.21.23

Anatomy Now - June 21, 2023

PRESS RELEASE

The American Association for Anatomy Calls for Ethical Treatment and Justice for Human Body Donors

ROCKVILLE, MD—JUNE 15, 2023 – In response to the allegations of illicit buying and selling of stolen body parts from Harvard Medical School's body donation program, the American Association for Anatomy (AAA) stands united in strong condemnation of the commercialization of human body donors and any action that violates donor ethics and trust. Our heartfelt support goes out to the affected families.

Any act that violates the principles of respect and dignity owed to every individual, in life or death, undermines the sanctity of donor posthumous wishes to promote and advance anatomical research and education. The AAA firmly believes that anatomical donations were never meant to be commercialized. Donor misuse compromises donor and public confidence in ethical human body donation and undermines the integrity of academic institutions and body donation programs who fully comprehend the weight of their role as caretakers of human body donors.

The gravity of abhorrent donor misuse is amplified by the potential ramifications that unethical practices may have on the advancement of anatomical research and education. Individuals who violate donor and public trust should be held accountable under the law. To ensure the ethical, legal, and responsible operation of body donation programs nationwide, the AAA calls upon government and law enforcement agencies, academic institutions, and regulatory bodies for both justice and collaborative reform to prevent the misuse and commodification of human body donors.

The AAA strives to provide guidance and resources, and strong advocacy, for human body donor programs. As an organization deeply invested in anatomical research and education, the AAA remains resolute in supporting the pursuit of knowledge while upholding the fundamental values of respect and dignity. The AAA will continue to prioritize the advancement of anatomical sciences while ensuring that the legacy of body donation is honored with the utmost respect and dignity. The AAA and its Human Body Donation Committee will stand steadfast in its mission to promote ethical, legal, and responsible practices within anatomical research and education.

AAA President

Martine Dunnwald, Pharm.D., Ph.D., FAAA

University of Iowa

Iowa City, IA

ASE Special Issue Will Peel Back the Layers of Psychometrics, Says Guest Editor Adam Wilson

AAA member Adam Wilson’s research focuses on educational measurement and evaluation, which makes him the perfect guest editor for Anatomical Sciences Education’s (ASE) upcoming special issue on psychometrics.

Psychometrics, which comes from the Greek words for mental and measurement, is the field of study that digs into the theory, design, delivery, and interpretation of tests and instruments that measure human intelligence, aptitudes and skills, attitudes, and personality traits.

“My interest and passion for psychometrics began in graduate school with my dissertation that investigated the validity of the script concordance test and its various scoring derivations,” said Wilson, who is now an associate professor and director of anatomy education for the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Rush University in Chicago, IL. “It is relatively commonplace for educators and administrators to blindly place their trust in tests/instruments to make decisions about applicants, students, trainees, and employees without fully appreciating how validity evidence is established.”

Wilson joined the AAA in 2010 and has served on the Committee for Early Career Anatomists, the Anatomy Curriculum Content Task Force, and chaired the Anatomy Education Research Institute (AERI) Task Force.

“During my graduate training, it was evident that becoming a member of an anatomy organization would help me to build valuable networks of collaborators and would allow me to become connected to a broader international anatomy education community,” said Wilson, who won the Rush Medical College’s Daniel Brainard Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020. “I had always heard the AAA was like one large extended family but needed to experience it for myself to draw my own conclusions. With many AAA conferences now under my belt, I can confidently attest the AAA is indeed one giant extended family of talented professionals.”

While the ASE special issue on psychometrics is still in its early stages – Wilson is currently recruiting

proposals for manuscripts – he gave Anatomy Now a sneak peek into what to expect.

Q: Why psychometrics? What makes psychometrics so valuable when it comes to teaching

anatomy?

A: For this special issue, I wanted to peel back the layers of psychometrics to help fellow educators better understand how validity arguments are constructed. During my training, I was never content accepting a generally positive statement about the quality of a test or instrument. I always wanted to understand how data-driven evidence informs us of the quality and utility of the measures we employ. I’m hoping this special issue will spark the same interest and desire for evidence among other anatomists.

Pursuing this line of research has allowed me to contribute many works to the field of medical education. In several instances, I have cautioned the use of certain instruments for making high-stakes decisions about individuals due to the test’s/instrument’s poor validity properties. No one wants to make a high-stakes decision about an individual only to learn the test/instrument they were using did not accurately and/or reliably portray the individual’s knowledge, skills, behaviors, or perceptions. It’s simply not fair for any individual to be misjudged on the bases of extensive measurement error.

As such, I have made it a personal mission through my research to help others better understand the quality and efficacy of tests, instruments, and pedagogies through psychometric studies and meta-analyses.

Q: What do you hope the readers of this ASE special issue will take away from the journal? What do you hope the special issue accomplishes?

A: An ASE special issue on psychometrics is important for a variety of reasons:

It engages an international audience of researchers from an important subfield of education (i.e., psychometrics, quantitative psychology, educational measurement and evaluation) to demonstrate how this research field, conducted across many different disciplines and student populations, is directly transferable to medical and anatomical sciences education.

• It showcases the importance of using psychometrics to help establish evidence-based practices.

• It provides examples of different forms of research studies (aside from commonly employed efficacy studies and survey-based methodologies) that others can learn from and adapt to their own research agendas.

• It will help educate practitioners on how to recognize weak versus strong validity arguments so that individuals can be more cognoscente of the quality and efficacy of the tests/instruments they employ for educational assessment or research purposes.

One of my goals is to publish several systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses to help summarize and draw conclusions about the validity of certain tests, instruments, and psychological scales. These papers are useful for helping others to justify the selection of instruments and tend to reveal gaps in validity arguments. This, in turn, leads to recommendations for future research and helps to propel the field forward.

Manuscript proposals for the ASE special issue on psychometrics can be submitted via the following link: https://airtable.com/shrmhI433AN15EwbG

New on the Journal Hub: May/June Issue of ASE

For the May/June issue cover illustration, Editor in Chief Jason Organ dug deep into the archives and found drawings by former AAA President (1914-1915) Dr. Gotthelf Carl Huber, professor of anatomy and dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan. Huber was also one of the founders of The American Journal of Anatomy (later Developmental Dynamics) and managing editor of The Anatomical Record.

Editorial highlights in this issue include an examination by Dr. Michael Hortsch, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan Medical School of the Michigan Histology website and how free e-learning resources supported online learning during the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Hortsch also has another article looking at the past, present and future of histology education.

This timely issue of ASE also includes a commentary column authored by a team of South African anatomists that calls on “anatomists and the public to vocalize and condemn” for-profit public dissections and an explorative qualitative study from a team of researchers from the Netherlands on the role anatomy plays in the daily practice of gynecologists.

Read the latest issue of Anatomical Sciences Education.

AAA's Anatomy Education Podcast

Check out and subscribe to the Anatomy Education Podcast, brought to you by the American Association of Anatomy.

Listen to views and opinions on anatomy education from around the world. Now, you can easily access all of the released episodes on our website or on multiple popular streaming platforms. Stay tuned for a new podcast series.

Listen here.

IFAA 2023 Festival of Anatomical Education

Join anatomists at the IFAA 2023 Festival of Anatomical Education. The opening symposium starts TODAY, June 21.

It will discuss key topics impacting the future of anatomy education and hear from colleagues with diverse experience and expertise. The festival is delivered fully online – join from anywhere in the world.

For more information or to register, click here.

IFAA Webinar Featuring AR Editor-in-Chief Heather Smith

Friday, June 23 at 10:00 AM EST

Join the Federative International Committee on Scientific Publications of IFAA's webinar “Data Integrity and Ethical Publishing Behavior in the Anatomical Sciences” presented by Professor Heather F. Smith on Friday, June 23 at 4 p.m. CEST/10 a.m. EST.

Dealing with Imposter Phenomenon as an Early Career Anatomist…and Beyond

Joanne L. Peterson, PhD

Assistant Professor of Anatomy, Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine

Committee of Early Career Anatomists (CECA) Member

It was June and I was sitting at my desk in my new office at an Osteopathic Medical school where I had just joined the Anatomy department. I was figuring out how to shift from undergraduate to medical school teaching. I was losing confidence, feeling overwhelmed and isolated, and I was trying to work out how I could hide the fact that they made a mistake when they hired me. I was in over my head and should not be there. I was certain it was just a matter of time before they realized that and fired me.

Has anyone else ever felt like this? Has anyone else suffered from imposter syndrome, more accurately known as imposter phenomenon?

According to Edwards et al. (1987), imposter syndrome (aka imposter phenomenon) describes “seemingly healthy, successful individuals who assume no false identities, but hide deep feelings of inadequacy concerning their achievements”. Although imposter phenomenon was originally described by Imes and Clance (1978) decades ago, there has been a recent increase in scholarly articles regarding this phenomenon. A PubMed search for [“imposter syndrome” OR “imposter phenomenon”] yields 186 articles from 1991-2022 with 73% of those being published in the last three years (see figure below).

Who is most affected by Impostor Phenomenon? A 2020 systemic review of 66 studies revealed mixed results with some studies that found imposter phenomenon differences between genders, age groups, and professional status, etc., whereas others did not show differences (Bravata et al., 2020). Even with this increase in data and information regarding the phenomenon, there have been few articles providing options for actually dealing with it. So, what can be done when you or a colleague suffers from imposter phenomenon? Below are some suggestions that have helped me and others I know when dealing with this issue.

Find a mentor or support group. One of the best things I have done is found other colleagues who have been through or are still dealing with this issue. Before, I was thinking everyone else was doing their job with ease and I felt isolated thinking I was the only one struggling. When I spoke with some peers and found they had similar thoughts it helped me feel less alone. Having a safe place to express self-doubt opens discussions on ways to combat the problem. It also provides reassurance that you are not alone, which breeds renewed confidence. My peers and I work on supporting each other and minimizing our self-doubt by remembering our successes and working on our weaknesses. I encourage everyone to find someone you can talk with so you are not isolated: a colleague, a mentor, someone from one of your professional societies, or a therapist.
Continue learning. Staying up to date with your field and becoming more knowledgeable helps with self-doubt. I am lucky to be in a department where we swap a few lectures with each other every year. This allows me to consistently push myself to create new lectures and refresh my understanding of the material. As a newer faculty member, becoming more proficient with a variety of lectures has helped reinforce the knowledge I have and makes me more confident when working with students, especially in the lab. Even without creating new lectures, a person can still work to improve any area of weakness by taking some time to dig into the material.
Stop comparing yourself to others. This is vital! When I started my new job, I was working with people who had more years of experience compared to me. Part of my insecurities came from seeing the ease they had presenting their material and answering questions for students. It made me feel like they were just smarter than me and I would never be at that level. But then I finally realized that I can’t compare myself to them because we are at different phases in our careers. Of course, they have more answers than I, they have been in this profession longer. Every year I get better and more versed in my field; I have to recognize that proficiency takes time to develop. So instead of comparing yourself to others, a better approach would be to align your actions with the duties for your specific appointment and set benchmarks for improvement based on criteria for yearly evaluations and/or promotion.
Realize it’s okay to say “I don’t know”. Students will ask questions for which you don’t always have the answer. And it’s fine if you don’t know in that moment because each time that happens becomes an opportunity for learning. Find an answer to their question and let them know what you found (or depending on the situation, task them with finding the information and reporting back to you). This is not a sign of incompetence but rather a moment for growth. And each time this happens, your knowledge base grows and the “I don’t know” moments eventually shrink.

These suggestions require continual work and are not a quick fix, but they have helped me to reduce my thoughts about being an imposter. Do you have other suggestions? Send them to [email protected] to possibly be featured in a future CECA article regarding Imposter Phenomenon.

NIH Report Finds More Early-Stage Investigators Supported in FY 2022

Over the past two years, NIH has supported 1,412 early-stage investigators (ESIs) in fiscal year (FY) 2020 and 1,513 in FY 2021, which were both all-time highs, writes NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Mike Lauer. These ESIs were first-time Principal Investigators (PIs) designated on type 1 (new) R01-equivalent awards. In his Open Mike blog post, Lauer also announced that even more ESIs were supported in FY 2022 as part of the agency’s continued Next Generation Researchers Initiative (NGRI) efforts.