1 W.T. Grant Foundation, New York, NY, Dept of Pediatrics, Cornell Medical College, New York, NY
2 Dept of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
Since the beginning of the 1980s, criticism of medical education in the United States has increased. At the same time, while biomedical science has undergone a revolution, medical education has been all too often mired in the same post-Flexnerian mode. Even today, basic sciences are often taught with no connection to clinical practice and with little connection among the basic sciences. Social and behavioral sciences, and the newer disciplines of clinical epidemiology and information sciences, may not be taught at all or only in a token manner. Criticism of the current curriculum has been increasing, and at least 11 national commissions in the past 40 years have made observations like "Medical education has kept only fitful pace with changes in biomedical science and health care needs."1
Submitted on April 2, 1992