medical students knowledge about clinical importance and effective teaching methods of anatomy

Background: anatomy is taught to medical students during first and second years of study and there is a big interval between learning the theory and its usage in the clinic. objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate medical students knowledge about clinical importance and effective teaching methods of anatomy. methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out on 225 preclinical and clinical medical students from the city of zahedan, iran, during october 2015 to april 2016. participants were selected using the convenience sampling method. data were collected using a three-part questionnaire after proving its validity and reliability. data were reported as descriptive and analytical statistics t test, anova, pearson correlation) by the spss software version 16. the significant level was set as p < 0.05. results: the results showed that preclinical students’ mean knowledge score was 23.05 ± 4.14 and that of clinical students was 26.83 ± 3.90. there was a significant difference between students’ course (p = 0.001) and ward (p = 0.001) and their level of knowledge. the most effective methods of learning anatomy from the perspective of preclinical and clinical students were giving lectures by the teacher and clinical students mentioned teaching theoretical topics simultaneously with clinical tips. conclusions: anatomy plays an important role in improving clinical skills of medical students. changes in teaching methods and using novel methods may be effective for teaching and learning anatomy and improving the students’ attitude regarding the clinical importance of anatomy.