The development of an adviser program at Rush Medical College is described that utilizes faculty members and provides comprehensive counseling with continuity of contact between adviser and student through medical school. Evaluations used to determine its efficacy are also discussed. (Author/MLW)

Physicians are likely to encounter a wide gamut of disorders related to drug and alcohol abuse and will need specialized knowledge and skills to treat the affected population effectively. The development and implementation of a program to meet these needs at the Medical College of Virginia is described. (MLW)

A new required clinical clerkship in family medicine at Duke University School of Medicine is described in terms of planning, implementation, and modification in response to students' evaluations. The data demonstrate that family medicine can be taught effectively as a core clinical rotation. (Author/MLW)

Adversarial relationships existing among medical students, nurses, and hospital staff members were recognized at Hermann Hospital, a private, nonprofit teaching hospital in Houston, Texas, to be potentially detrimental to patient care. A joint communications committee identified ways to improve relations between medical students and hospital…

A program designed to help first-year medical students understand basic medical ethical issues and view these issues as a essential component of their knowledge base in clinical medicine is described. (Author/MLW)

A relationship between the medical schools of Chiang Mai University and the University of Illinois, part of a national involvement in Thailand's socioeconomic development, is analyzed. Antecedents, activities, outcomes, and problems are reviewed with emphasis on need for sound training, energy, adaptability, and investment of years. (JT)

The University of Michigan Medical School concluded that the traditional budgeting process failed to discriminate adequately among programs. The school developed a new system for managing resources utilizing the principles of zero-base budgeting. The new budget/planning system is described. (Author/MLW)

The University of Utah School of Medicine offers a supplemental undergraduate Seniors Honors Program in Surgery. The goals of the program have been to allow students to make more informed career choices, obtain positions in competitive residency programs, and a head start in postgraduate surgical training. (MLW)

An evaluation procedure designed to measure the effects of university-organized continuing medical education (CME) courses on participants' prescribing behavior was examined. Copies of prescriptions were analyzed to establish real behavior compared with the physicians' self-reports. (Author/MLW)

A preceptorship program design to introduce preclinical students to primary care in both underserved and adequately served communities is described. A preliminary evaluation of the program's first year indicates that it has had an impact on the students' attitudes. (Author/MLW)

A community-based educational network was established to improve the deployment of physicians's assistants away from the original site of training in California's San Francisco Bay Area. The graduates' practice locations for a 7-year period was compared before and after the decentralization of the program. (Author/MLW)

Obstacles to developing training programs in geriatric medicine include shortage of faculty members and negative attitudes toward geriatrics on the part of students. For two years, family medicine residents have participated in a required rotation in geriatric medicine at the Duke University Medical Center. (Author/MLW)

A 5-week family medicine clerkship is described that uses several innovative techniques: problem-based learning focusing on patient management tutorials; consultation with specialists; supervised patient care and a nursing home inpatient teaching service; and workshops on topics such as office-surgical techniques, practice management, and…

A year-long interdisciplinary continuity-of-care elective for second-year, preclinical students in a medically underserved inner-city neighborhood is described. Students were able to learn the skills needed to implement and evaluate long-term health care and to assess the cost effectiveness of various approaches to such care. (MLW)