The medical humanities program has 50 contact hours with medical students in the required curriculum, well-subscribed fourth-year electives, and programs for residents, fellows, and faculty. Course content is summarized by year. Several crucial decisions in the program's first year have affected its nature and development. (Author/MSE)

A medical humanities program emphasizing clinically oriented training is described. The four-year required curriculum, in which students accompany attending physicians on rounds, is taught by faculty representing a wide range of medical and non-medical disciplines. The approach is seen to challenge good teachers and evoke humanities themes from…

Stanford University created an interdisciplinary program to train researchers and academic leaders in the field of medical information sciences. The program is described, identifying experiences of interest to people developing such a program. The program's background and history, students, curriculum and philosophy, and lessons learned are…

Computer-based clinical simulations used in medical education are designed according to decisions about which elements of reality to explicitly include, which to leave to imagination, and when to intervene for educational purposes. Programs offer many options for structuring the simulations, such as varying levels of volunteered information about…

The strategy used by one health maintenance organization (HMO) for balancing residents' training needs and patient health problems, often limited and routine in an HMO, is to allocate patients to residents by matching them with curriculum content. A process for handling patient resistance to such an arrangement was also instituted. (MSE)

The establishment of faculties of medical library and information science in four Chinese national medical universities is described. The faculties were established in the mid-1980s, and each is fully integrated into its university. Students receive three years of nonclinical medical training and two years of library and information science…

The medical school's ethics and human values program spans the medical curriculum from first through fourth year and extends into several residency programs. Taught by scholars in the medical humanities and clinicians from almost every specialty, courses and seminars draw on philosophy, literature, and law. (Author/MSE)

In the University of South Dakota's medical school clerkship program, students may choose one of three ambulatory-care settings. In one, the curriculum is problem based and student centered to enhance student interest in primary care. The new program has been successful and well received and is being further developed. (MSE)

The process used by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine to develop core curriculum guidelines for third-year family medicine clerkships is described, the guidelines are presented, and dissemination, implementation, and further development activities are outlined. The work was supported by a Department of Health and Human Services grant.…

The University of Calgary medical school revised its curriculum based on the way patients present to physicians. The curriculum defines 120 clinical presentations; describes appropriate clinical behavior of a graduating physician for each presentation; and specifies the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed by the graduate for clinical…

In a longitudinal study of 659 graduates of the Jefferson Medical School-Pennsylvania State University combined undergraduate-medical degree program since 1964, academic performances, clinical ratings, and careers are examined and compared to those of traditional medical program graduates. The program's design is found appropriate and successful…

Defines service learning and its core concepts, and how it differs from traditional education in the health professions, discussing how such programs can benefit students, faculty, communities, higher education institutions, as well as relationships among all these groups. Recommended resources for integrating service learning into the medical…

A popular required family medicine clerkship at Jefferson Medical College (Pennsylvania) suggests that ambulatory care can be taught as a core component of the clinical curriculum. Success requires strong institutional support, structured curriculum, adequate patients, dedicated faculty, sufficient training sites, an appropriate evaluation…

The Tufts University (Massachusetts) School of Medicine's four-year combined M.D./Master's in Public Health program produces professionals trained and credentialed in both public health and medicine. The program, which has graduated 75 students, addresses both the care of the individual and the care of populations, and did not require drastic…

A discussion of the place of medical history in the undergraduate medical curriculum looks at the evolution and trends in this area of instruction from the late 19th century to the present. Curriculum models and teacher qualifications are examined. An annotated bibliography of medical history sources is included. (MSE)