The BEST Network portal has a wide variety of resources for teaching anatomy – from image collections to tutorials. To further spread the word about the BEST Network within the Anatomy community, the BEST Team presented at the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) in Beijing, China in August 2014.

Great Wall of China at Mutianyu

The IFAA was created to facilitate scientific exchange among anatomists, histologists, morphologists, anthropologists and other professionals working in the fields to unify the language used in teaching and research. The BEST Network hosted a booth where delegates could experience how BEST members were collaborating in many biomedical disciplines.

BEST Network Booth at IFAA

The conference provided a wonderful opportunity to spread the word about BEST internationally. Dr Nalini Pather (UNSW Australia), Dr Vaughan Kippers (UQ), Diane Vukelic (BEST Network) and Dr Stephanie Dowdell (BEST Network) presented BEST at a workshop designed to introduce delegates to the possibilities of creating and adapting BEST courseware using the Smart Sparrow platform and how Slice can be used in class.

The BEST Network team

Dr Pather also had the opportunity to present her work on the creation of a series of adaptive anatomy tutorials using the Smart Sparrow platform. Designed to provide students with access to case-based scenarios incorporating clinical anatomy, the tutorials give students individual feedback and have been used to facilitate ‘flipped classroom’ activities at UNSW.

Dr Pather presenting her paper on ‘Virtual anatomy adaptive tutorials’

Dr Kippers presented his paper on creating resources for students at the University of Queensland to support their study of radiological anatomy. In partnership with Diagnostic Imaging Pathways, a wonderful resource of diagnostic images for education and clinical decision support, Vaughan and the Smart Sparrow team created tutorials designed to test student’s knowledge of normal anatomy. Both Nalini’s and Vaughan’s tutorials are available on the Courseware Catalogue.

Dr Kippers presenting at IFAA

BEST Network members now total over 850, with 77 new registrations from IFAA. We look forward to working with our new friends.