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New Med School Curriculum Allows Early Finish

Completion of medical
school in three years and an
earlier introduction to patient
care will be possible under a
new medical curriculum being
initiated this summer at the
University's medical school.

A trial class of 25 students
who volunteered for the
experimental program will
enter the medical school July
6, according to planners of the
alternative curriculum. Other
members of their class will
enter in September and will
follow the traditional four-year
curriculum.

The new mode of medical
education is the product of a
year's study and planning by
medical educators here, who
were funded by the National
Institutes of Health to devise
an alternative to the present
medical curriculum.

Those enrolled in the new
curriculum will be in school a
total of 32 months, which
represents an actual reduction
in total time of only three
months. The inclusion of
eight-week summer sessions,
however, will enable them to
graduate one calendar year
ahead of their class. Summer
instruction is also designed to
free time in the regular
September-to-May sessions for
early clinical training, the
planners say.

Traditional medical
education is divided into what
are known as pre-clinical and
clinical periods. The
pre-clinical work, which takes
up most of the first two years
of medical school, is devoted
mainly to basic science training
in such subjects as anatomy,
physiology, and pathology.
Clinical instruction relates this
foundation knowledge to
patient care.

"The intent of the new
curriculum is to erase the sharp
distinction between the two
types of learning and to get a
better balance of the two
throughout medical school,"
says Pathology Prof. Eugene A.
Foster, director of the
experimental curriculum
planning committee,
committee.

Innovations in the way
courses are taught will also be a
feature of the new curriculum,
Dr. Foster said.

The new curriculum will
also include a month in the
later stages of study in which
the students serve as laboratory
instructors, teaching assistants
and the like.

"Today, whether they
specialize or practice general
medicine, most doctors take
several additional years of
advanced training after the
M.D. is granted,"Dr. Foster
said. "So, we feel that cutting
one calendar year from the
medical curriculum is a great
advantage to a person who now
has to look forward to perhaps
seven or eight years of study
before he practices."