Group Lead: Ms. Janine Correia 

Group Members: Mrs. Jodie Lemphane, Mr. Bryan Bergsteedt 

The Division focuses on innovations and research on topics related to education in the anatomical sciences of anatomy. The teaching of anatomy is integral and important to the training of future clinicians and allied health professionals. Finding innovative and affordable ways to achieve this is a challenge and has become a research focus area in the division. Now is the time to complement conventional anatomical teaching with innovation, which demands modern anatomists to combine traditional and technology-savvy scientists. The research conducted in this field includes qualitative and quantitative methods. Studies include the use of ultrasound in teaching and learning anatomy; implementation of a virtual anatomy journal club; incorporation of clay modeling into gross anatomy to help students understand cross-sectional anatomy; perceptions of anatomy students on online anatomy education during the covid-pandemic; clinicians' opinions on the clinical relevance of anatomy at the Division of Clinical Anatomy. Research in anatomy education aims to provide a platform for the understanding of learning, teaching, and assessments in anatomy.  

For any inquiries about the research in Medical Education, our research, postgraduate opportunities, or collaboration initiatives, please contact Ms. Janine Correia (jcorreia@sun.ac.za).  

On the histological education platform, lecturing staff at our Division are collaborating with staff from the University of Oulu in Finland and the University of Namibia in Namibia on a project that aims to facilitate the development of digital histology teaching material at the medical schools of the three Universities. The project also aims at enhancing the possibilities for collaboration in teaching between the participating universities in the long term. The University of Oulu has developed the QuPath Edu extension for the QuPath virtual microscopy software™ and has successfully implemented this for histology teaching in their Faculty of Medicine since 2018. In this project, QuPath Edu will be introduced to digitalize histology teaching at teaching in the Universities of Stellenbosch and Namibia. Using the QuPath material will make histology teaching more accessible, especially in a low-resource setting (asynchronous & data light), and ease virtual histology teaching in events of pandemics.  

For more information on this collaborative project, contact Mrs. Jodie Lemphane (ilayman@sun.ac.za). ​