A program of computer-assisted patient-management problems for teaching pediatrics is described. At each decision point, the computer provides choices or an opportunity for the student to enter a statement. The students review their performance, checking their choices against those of the instructors at each point. (Author/MLW)

The effectiveness of multidisciplinary patient conferences was examined. The question of multidisciplinary conference productivity was addressed by examining the impact of these conferences on a team's formulation of patient therapy plans, problem lists, hospitalization goals, and discharge date. (Author/MLW)

Evaluating a person's physical and psychological make-up along with physical and cultural environment are skills that must be learned by physicians-in-training. The faculty of the Boston City Hospital Primary Care Training Program uses the home visit to help residents develop these skills. (Author/MLW)

Social, cultural, economic, psychological, and interpersonal dimensions of cancer and cancer patient management were addressed in an elective course conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. Student attitudes toward the disease were tested before and after taking the course. Significant attitudinal shifts, new insights, and new skills resulted…

Initial efforts at the University of North Carolina to develop a social science curriculum that is relevant to medical practice are reported. Descriptions of course content, format, teaching strategies, and course evaluation are included with a focus on the question of relevance. (Author/JMD)

Medical educators must acquaint students with the advantages of assessing the patient's total needs and of utilizing a broad range of services to help the patient achieve his fullest health potential. A schema is described for implementing the comprehensive health care concept. (Author/LBH)

Experience at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey suggests that consumer health education can be incorporated into a medical school curriculum. It can be included in the existing courses in occupational medicine, behavioral sciences, and psychiatry and other preclinical and clinical areas. (LBH)

Track II is a self-elective, five-term interdisciplinary program whose preclinical curriculum involves using patient problems as themes to allow students to integrate basic concepts and skills of biomedical and behavioral-social sciences. Its aim is to direct medical students toward a lifelong commitment to comprehensive patient care, continuing…

A program is described that relates behavioral science research to cancer care, encourages frank discussion and objective analysis of oncology practice, and attempts to dispell the myth that cancer patients are not medically manageable. A wide range of teaching methods are used. (MSE)

An interdisciplinary faculty of the University of Califiornia at Los Angeles School of Medicine has developed a behavioral science program to teach interns the interpersonal skills necessary for effective physician patient encounters. Curriculum topics include interviewing, problem identification, and situational stress. (JMD)

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)