The abilities to understand medical technology, to evaluate new devices and procedures, and to assess their effectiveness, reliability, costs, and risks in comparison with existing methods are discussed. A course in clinical biophysics offered at the State University of New York at Buffalo is described. (Author/MLW)

A comprehensive course on cancer prevention developed for the University of Maryland School of Medicine under a contract with the National Cancer Institute is described. This innovative, multidisciplinary, modular curriculum package was tested as a four-week elective, revised, and field tested again. (Author/MLW)

A computer-based curriculum database was developed at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine to provide curriculum planners with accurate information on what was being taught, who was teaching, and where in the curriculum subjects were being taught. Problems of curriculum overlap, integration, and correlation are discussed. (Author/MLW)

The interviewing course at the University of Minnesota Medical School evolved from an experiment in systematic curriculum development in which videotape feedback was used to improve students' interviewing skills and data-gathering ability. The effectiveness of tutor-consultant cooperation in curriculum development is shown. (LBH)

The Keller Method requires abolishing lectures as a vehicle of information transfer in favor of a study guide and breaking the biochemistry course into a number of units each to be mastered at the student's own pace. (Editor)

A pilot program in respiratory therapeutics that includes a development and implementation model is reported. Its prerotational and postrotational evaluations and significant improvement in competency areas related to clinical skill areas are described. (Author/MLW)

To remedy problems with a weekly lecture format, a course in the behavioral sciences for preclinical medical students was restructured and presented as a full-time, five-week block at the end of the first year. Morning lectures are followed by afternoon clinical sessions. Academic performance, attitude change, and feedback are evaluated. (LBH)

A 4-year effort at Yale University School of Medicine to teach toxicology as an elective basic science from the standpoint of organ-specific toxic effects is described. The objective of the successful multidisciplinary program is to prepare physicians to understand, recognize, and manage adverse effects from drugs and other environmental…

A 2-month program for third-year students at Yeshiva's Albert Einstein College of Medicine that provides a model for integrating basic sciences and clinical training is described. It demonstrates the importance of lifelong learning in a field that constantly changes. (Author/MLW)

The needs of physically and psychiatrically disabled people were identified, and seven content areas that relate to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed by physicians were elaborated in a "core curriculum" for medical students. (MLW)

Course descriptions were compared with student observations of the incidence of cancer-educational events in the medical curriculum. The method is recommended for assessing deficiencies and redundancies in any curriculum in both qualitative and quantitative ways. (MSE)

The new teaching format of a behavioral science course at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine is described. Specific objectives were to present an introduction of life's developmental cycles, the nature of mind-body relationships, and dynamics of the doctor-patient relationship, and to develop interviewing skills. (MLW)

A freshman-sophomore psychiatry course, "To the Asylum and Back: Implications of Efforts to Deinstitutionalize the Mentally Ill," offered at the University of California at Los Angeles is described. The topic was chosen because it constitutes a major dilemma that has developed in recent years in American psychiatry. (Author/MLW)

McMaster University School of Medicine admits students who may not have had an extensive education in physics, chemistry, and biology. The objectives and teaching methods of a preliminary course once offered to those students and now incorporated into the M.D. program are described. (Editor/LBH)