We require drawing and sketching anatomy of all graduate students in Biomedical Visualization's first semester Visual Learning and Visual Thinking I class in the same semester as Medical Anatomy with dissection. The goal is to develop 3D understanding and long term memory of anatomy which then improves the student's ability to translate anatomical knowledge to surgery.

when I was in my bachelors, we had a modul were we partly reconstructed areas of the honeybee brain. For me this was a great chance to understand and learn the anatomy better!

This is an area that we are currently developing as an elective in the Natural History Illustration degree at the University of Newcastle, Australia.  Students from any related faculty will be able to participate and we are considering developing it into a MOOC so external students can also benefit.  We hope it will be useful not only for students studying anatomy for medical studies but also those who need to develop good observational skills for similar fields such as forensics. Harvard Medical School have already done a bit of research in this area.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26775609

I do whenever necessary nowadays     previously it was always chalk and talk with me  

Hi, For gross anatomy we usually use models as well as dead animal bodies and allow the student to dissect each part with themselves. as well as plastination models and we are preparing now 3 dimensional models. for microscopic anatomy we usually use stained H&E slides at different stages of rabbit embryo development 

No way in a modern medical school

We require drawing and sketching anatomy of all graduate students in Biomedical Visualization's first semester Visual Learning and Visual Thinking I class in the same semester as Medical Anatomy with dissection. The goal is to develop 3D understanding and long term memory of anatomy which then improves the student's ability to translate anatomical knowledge to surgery.

It depends. In my opinion, the human (or animal) anatomy at a level of the medical students is far more complicated than a simple drawing of the regular student or professor. Better use anatomy atlases and try to learn the descriptions from the textbooks than wasting your time memorizing simple and sometimes not so precise drawings.

There is a big difference between an 'observational drawing' and an anatomical 'illustration'. An illustration is an essentialised contour drawing of an anatomical part and is drawn so that it can be accurately annotated. An observational drawing of a humerus (for example) will involve studying it through gatjering data from it through touching it as well as looking at it and at the same time, drawing it. The purpose of observational drawing is, as Christine Young comments above, to "...develop a 3D understanding and long term memory of anatomy..." (C. Young).

see https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4m4hj00lsl44qef/AACJJ2DxiWDdkDgHEFdA42xha?dl=0

You are right Leonard.  Observing, touching, contemplating and drawing are all vital steps in developing a 3d understanding of something and remembering it.  Although we teach 'illustrations' we encourage our students to spend a good deal of time touching and exploring every ridge and dimple before they pick up their pencils. It doesn't matter what the subject is (I use exactly the same process with archaeological artefacts) if you touch turn something over in your hands and consider how to draw it - you will never forget it.

Bernadette, thank you for your reply. How did you arrive at this method of observation? Did you discover it naturally through your experience?

Bernadette, observational drawing is highly exploratory and a lot of data is gathered through the fingers. The drawings that result are also very exploratory by nature. In my experience, it is these very exploratory drawings that inform the observer/drawer of the essential lines that they would need to draw in order to render an anatomical illustration of the anatomical object that was explored and observed through drawing. In essence, an illustration is a contour drawing of the object; a contour drawing that captures the essential features of the anatomical object.