Medical Schools Change Up Their Curricula

When people think of the first year of medical school, they often think about new doe-eyed medical students fearfully cutting up a cadaver in their first week.  Now, medical school curricula is continually changing to keep up with changing scientific and cultural demands that doctors face.

For example, at Georgetown, students take a few months of more hands-off courses before they begin dissecting.  These classes include “Social and Cultural Issues in Health Care” and “Physician-Patient Communication.”

Johns Hopkins has implemented a new case-based teaching method, where students study cases to understand the intricacies of the disease, medication options, the pros and the cons of certain treatment options and more.  The case-based teaching method is similar to those employed in law schools.

The idea behind the new teaching methods was that medical students were not able to apply subjects such as anatomy until they started doing clinical rotations.

The Association of American Medical Colleges has suggested scrapping the list of undergrad course requirements for pre-med students.  These courses would be replaced by a set of ideas that students will have to understand before entering medical school.

Classic courses such as organic chemistry, anatomy, and physiology have been questioned as necessary pre-med or early medical school courses.  The new changes in the curricula can encourage potentially strong doctors to pursue a medical career without being disenchanted or deterred by an inability to perform admirably in some subjects — organic chemistry, for example.