Medical Science Educator Volume 2: No. 2

Charles Dickens began one of the classics of Western literature with the now familiar words “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” How appropriate a description of medical education today. For we find ourselves in a time of impendent revolution, when the rising tide of discontentment threatens to overwhelm the… Read more »

Many of us have conceived of and implemented innovative approaches in our teaching program, often with smashing success but on occasion with less than the hoped for outcome. How can we share these experiences with others? Sometimes we are able to inform colleagues in our own discipline but many times the approach is not sufficiently… Read more »

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1992: 10:15 AM TO NOONNEW ORLEANS, LA The Fifth Annual Meeting of the Basic Science Education Forum Special Interest Group will take place on November 11, 1992 during the annual AAMC meeting in New Orleans, LA. The program for this year’s meeting will address the BSEF Project Topic Information Overload: Defining Essential… Read more »

The dual problems of clinical relevance and expanding data in basic science courses continue to vex medical school faculty and students alike. Biochemistry in a traditional curriculum may be the most prominent example, since many of the most important and basic concepts do not figure obviously in clinical practice even if they underlie other preclinical… Read more »

The Basic Science Education Forum is in the preliminary stages of planning a summer conference on New Educational Strategies for the Basic Sciences, to be held in Charleston, SC during the early part of June, 1993 jointly sponsored and hosted by The Medical University of South Carolina. The following program topics have been suggested: “Critical… Read more »

Actually, from the “Chair” of the “Electronic” Networking Committee, but I think the above title conveys more of the “sizzle” of this exciting and ever-expanding technology. Most of us are already using computers for a variety of academic and personal reasons, and many are into electronic mail via local area networking or more globally through… Read more »

During the current debate concerning Medical Education the unquestionable shortcomings of the traditional curriculum have been pointed out by many. Remarkably, few have cared mention their immediate cause—the apathy and immobilism of faculty in charge of Basic Science courses. The proliferation of alternative curricula, stressing problem solving and self learning, is a clear reaction to… Read more »

We teach our Immunology and Microbiology-Infectious Diseases courses in the sophomore year of a traditional curriculum. Thus, the students have a very busy schedule and it was not possible either to add clinical correlations to an already overloaded schedule, or to use them in a very intense self-learning format. Thus, we planned our Clinical Correlation… Read more »

The introduction of clinical dimension in the basic science years of medical school is more difficult in the first year than in the second. The second year traditionally contains the bridge courses of pathology, pharmacology, microbiology and immunology, which thrive on close connections with heir clinical counterparts of pathophysiology, therapeutics, infectious diseases, and clinical immunology…. Read more »

NORTHEAST REGION ALIX I. ROBINSON, Ph.D., DIRECTOR The Northeast Region BSEF met at the spring Northeast Group on Educational Affairs (NGEA) conference in Baltimore, MD in March, 1992. The theme of the NGEA meeting was Integrating the Basic Sciences and Clinical Medicine: Breaking Down the Barriers. The BSEF program started with a brief organizational and… Read more »

Four topics have been defined which the BSEF is addressing in various ways, each one being coordinated by a Regional Director. If you have interests, opinions and/or wish to work with others toward the resolution of one or more of the following, please contact the designated individual. Our long-term goal is to create workable solutions… Read more »