The area health education centers (AHEC) program was established in West Virginia in 1972 as a centralized consortium linking undergraduate and graduate medical and health professions training in Charleston. In 1987 the reorganized AHEC began developing rural community-based consortia that integrate rural primary care residencies with state-funded…

A project in a health sciences department of one Australian university, designed to encourage faculty collaboration on student assessment issues, became a program of personal and collective review giving insight into the processes and dynamics of curriculum and professional development. The project, its processes and products, and implications…

Describes a University of the Pacific (California) biomedical informatics center that promotes student use of informatics for doctoral courses, facilitates course-related hands-on information seeking, encourages graduate and faculty use of information technology, and is self-supporting. Discusses organization, benefits, and problems encountered,…

Provides a step-by-step description of the process used to develop an HIV/AIDS prevention workshop for professionals who work with gay and bisexual men in a rural region where HIV/AIDS is perceived as irrelevant and public discourse on the topic is rare. Discusses obstacles overcome in determining a focus for the proposal and a focus for the 2-day…

A week-long program sponsored by the Association of American Indian Physicians brings American Indian high school students to Washington DC to introduce them to careers in health, biomedical research, and policy development. Visits with American Indian government agency personnel, congressional leaders, and physicians show students available…

Tables contain dollar amounts of fiscal 1990 actual spending and fiscal 1991 presidential request, House-approved, Senate-approved, and actual appropriations for scientific research, health research and training, student financial aid, graduate support, institutional assistance, bilingual education, library resources, aid to disadvantaged and…

A problem-based learning approach emphasizing problem solving and self-directed learning was designed for third-year students entering vision therapy clinic rotations. The approach's use in a clinical setting, student and faculty response, and preliminary conclusions about the approach's advantages and disadvantages are discussed. (Author/MSE)

Factors in the classroom that complement a well-designed optometry curriculum are discussed, including elements of the student-teacher relationship and the classroom environment, and guidelines are provided for evaluating the outcomes of instruction. (MSE)

The restructuring of the oral health sciences program at the University of Alberta (Canada), in response to drastically reduced funding, is described. Major objectives were to reduce program cost to the university and enhance the institution's scholarly/research profile. The model, used in other countries, separates clinical from academic costs.…

Use of an interactive computer-assisted learning program to teach basic skills in obtaining drug information was investigated with 26 doctoral pharmacy students and a control group of 25 students receiving lecture instruction. Findings indicated no significant differences in short-term retention of drug information between groups and that students…

A flexible strategy for large-group pharmacy instruction in drug metabolism has students prepare and discuss answers to fact-oriented study questions, addressing fundamentals covered in a textbook, with regular evaluation of in-class student responses to higher-order review questions. This discussion-based approach has brought sustained…

This summary of a 1995 forum on the cost and future of dental education proposes that the profession of dental education view the dual concerns of cost containment and curricular innovation as a puzzle to be solved rather than as a paradox to be accepted and thus foster growth, development, and vitality. (MSE)

The Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa) was founded to address underrepresentation of blacks in health professions and inadequate health care in the homelands. It trains most allied health professionals in the country, emphasizing community service and preventive medicine. Medunsa and American health professions schools can learn from…

A study investigated the amounts of time that 29 physiotherapy and 29 occupational therapy students in problem-based curricula spent in nonscheduled and scheduled educational activities, and whether students increased or decreased time spent while progressing through academic and clinical curricula. A general decrease in time spent on educational…

A discussion of basic and clinical science teaching in optometry in the next decade looks at the changing role of primary care and specialist optometrists, the training needs of current and future faculty, recommended curriculum changes, and decision making about delivery of this training. The roles of graduate training, residencies, and…