Asserts that North American medical education favors an explicit commitment to traditional values of doctoring--empathy, compassion, and altruism--but a tacit commitment to behaviors grounded in an ethic of detachment, self-interest, and objectivity. Explores differing ways (conflation, deflation, and maintaining of values) that students respond…

Describes the successful encouragement of student research provided by the Office of Student Research Opportunities (OSRO) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The OSRO advises students, identifies faculty who want to mentor students, sponsors the Distinction in Research program, organizes an annual research day, helps fund summer and full-time…

Describes how Meharry Medical College, a 125-year-old historically Black medical school, was on the brink of closing down, but that through new leadership and partnerships, the school is financially healthy, and its students' board scores are the highest in the school's history. (EV)

Describes a program of the financial aid office at Harvard University Medical School (Massachusetts) that helps students with debt management and personal financial planning through presentations to seniors by professionals in insurance and financial planning and by offering two individual consultations with a physician financial planning…

Introduces this theme issue dealing with women's health and medical education and discusses the distinction between sex, as biologically based differences, and gender, qualities that are culturally shaped. The current plurality of efforts in women's health provide a new organizational framework for medicine and changes in medical education. (SLD)

Reviews 19 teaching tools about women's health, ranging from general curricula to books, videos, and CD-ROMs that can be used by educators and learners throughout the continuum of medical education. (Author/SLD)

Explores and interprets the history of anatomy education, drawing on subjective commentary and objective data from various historical periods. Suggests that although anatomy is in decline from a scientific point of view, dissection is enjoying a revival as a vehicle for teaching humanist values in medicine. (SLD)

Objective: The authors assess whether implementation of work hour limits is associated with a lower prevalence of medical resident burnout. Method: A survey was mailed to medical residents in different medical specialties at one university. Results: Somewhat lower burnout prevalence was reported among residents after implementation of work hour…

Objective: The authors summarize efforts to revitalize psychiatry teaching to medical students at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in advance of a major overhaul of the medical school curriculum. Methods: This preliminary report chronicles key challenges and the organization of the reform effort within the departments of psychiatry affiliated with the…

Objective: Evaluation procedures that rely solely on attending physician ratings may not identify residents who display poor communication skills or unprofessional behavior. Inclusion of non-physician evaluators should capture a more complete account of resident competency. No published reports have examined the relationship between resident…

We explore three analytic methods that can be used to quantify and qualify changes in attitude and similar outcomes that may be encountered in the educational context. These methods can be used or adapted whenever the outcome of interest is change in a generally unmeasurable attribute, such as attitude. The analyses we describe focus on: (1)…

Objective: There is a critical need for new researchers in psychiatry, including subspecialties such as geriatric psychiatry. Many existing research training programs focus on post-doctoral-level trainees and involve several years of hands-on research with experienced mentors at major universities. Although valuable, such programs have some…

Objective: The authors review third-year medical students' questionnaires to identify the perceptions, themes, and recommendations following an inpatient suicide. Method: The authors reviewed the needs assessment information collected 1 year after an inpatient suicide. The information, originally gathered through responses to a voluntary e-mail…

Few medical faculty members are adequately prepared for their instructional responsibilities. Our educational traditions were established before we had research-based understandings of the teaching-learning process and before brain research began informing our understandings of how humans achieve lasting learning. Yet, there are several advantages…

A total of 221 (111 female and 110 male) British Medical students completed the NEO-FFI personality inventory [Costa, P. T., Jr., and McCrae, R. R. (1992). "Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual." Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.], an abbreviated version of Biggs'…