Anatomy education in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects

Abstract

Terkuma Chia, Oluwatosin Imoleayo Oyeniran

Anatomy is an all-time important subject in all healthcare professions globally. It is widely taught in Nigerian institutions of higher learning offering programs in medical and allied health sciences. This paper aims to provide an overview of Anatomy Education as practiced in Nigeria today, enumerating the challenges facing it and its possible future prospects today. We explored major databases such as PubMed MEDLINE, Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Science Direct, from January 1992 to June 2019, using selected keywords to identify and extract articles relating and peculiar to Anatomy education in Nigeria. This review yielded 50 publications with 30 meeting our quality and inclusion requirements. This paper highlighted some of the issues that bedeviled the teaching and learning of Anatomy to include lack of an Anatomy Act which makes room for contemporary challenges, scarcity of cadavers, manpower shortages, and lack of requisite skills, insufficient funding, and obsolete facilities and equipment. In conclusion, the teaching and learning of Anatomy in Nigeria is plagued with a series of challenges. It is therefore recommended that there is the need to periodically examine the status of anatomical science education in Nigeria with the view to improve in its areas of weaknesses, which if addressed would have the potential to revolutionize teaching and learning of Anatomy in Nigeria and in the long run healthcare delivery as a whole.