Impact of Elective Courses and Gender Influence on Enhancing Radiological Anatomy Understanding Among Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

Rationale and objectives Gross anatomy remains a pivotal part of medical education. Specially, when integrating with radiology. Radiological education and teaching modalities improved in efficacy with earlier exposure, providing beneficial outcomes regarding diagnostic expertise. Studies demonstrate radiological images significantly enhance students' applied knowledge in clinical settings, along with introducing problem-based and self-directed learning. Materials and methods At King Faisal University (KFU), College of Medicine, in Al Hofuf, Saudi Arabia, a cross-sectional study was established to assess radiological anatomy understanding of third-year medical students, with a population size of 263 (55.1%, n = 145) males and (44.9%, n = 118) females. The collected data include demographics, academic performance, and elective course attendance. The study includes all third-year medical students, males and females, who have and have not taken the elective course. The study excludes male and female students of all other academic years. The data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 29. Results The current study of 199 third-year students included 80 females (40.2%) and 119 males (59.8%). The mean age was 21.603 (±0.649), with n = 84 aged ≤21 (42.2%) and n = 115 aged >21 (57.8%). The mean understanding score for elective course non-attendees was 4.55/20 (standard deviation (SD) = 3.1), while for course attendees, it was 14.17/20 (SD = 3.9), which is significantly higher (p < 0.001). Females demonstrated a significantly higher understanding (48.75%, n = 39) compared to males (32.8%, n = 39) (p = 0.019). Elective course attendees showed significantly higher understanding (97.9%, n = 47) in comparison to non-attendees (21.2%, n = 32) (p < 0.001). Gender (p = 0.033) significantly influenced high-level understanding, with males less likely (Exp(B) = 0.403, 95% CI (0.175, 0.930)). Conclusion The present study highlights the significant positive impact of elective courses on radiological anatomy understanding. Female participants and elective course attendance positively enhanced high-level comprehension, emphasizing educational interventions' effectiveness.