Talk - From textbook to real world: How to develop an inclusive anatomy DEI resource. IFAA Congress, Melbourne, 13-16th August 2026

Description

Introduction and Aims
Traditional anatomy teaching entails narrow representation of structures, reflecting limited global diversity in genetic ancestry, ethnicity, sex, age, culture, and lived experience. Ongoing institution and society level projects worldwide strive to diversify verbal and visual information in anatomy texts and lectures. Efforts include diverse skin tone and body type representation more inclusive of national and global populations with limited comprehensive educational database and resource creation. This project aimed to develop and evaluate an anatomy diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) resource conveying human variations and conditions associated with people of diverse backgrounds to foster inclusive teaching and student belonging.

Methods
This resource was created by a diverse team of anatomy instructors. Contributors worked collaboratively to incorporate culturally relevant content, anatomical variations, real-world clinical implications, and curricular integration strategies into PowerPoint slide decks, providing instructors DEI-relevant content access and use. Resource content early adopters assessed its usefulness within their courses and provided feedback.

Results
Over 100 content slides were curated representing four traditional gross anatomy regions: back and upper extremities, thorax and abdomen, pelvis and lower extremities, and head and neck. Content samples from each region and key educational elements will be highlighted. Resource construction, review, revision, and learning environment implementation procedures were developed, and early adopter evaluative feedback was acquired.

Conclusion
Preliminary user satisfaction encourages more anatomy educators to utilize this DEI resource. Culturally relevant content curricular integration strategies convince educators to make their teaching more diverse and inclusive to enhance their students’ cultural competence and sense of belonging.

Keywords
anatomical variations; belonging; cultural relevance; diversity, equity, and inclusion resource; inclusive teaching

Ethics compliance: Since this project involved the development of an educational resource, ethical approval was not required. Moreover, human participants were not recruited, and patient and student data and their personal identifiable information were not included. Therefore, the overall study was deemed exempt from formal ethical review.
Funding statement: No funding was utilized or has been utilized during the ongoing completion of this project.

Period	13 Aug 2026 → 16 Aug 2026
Degree of Recognition	International