Innovations in medical curricula: Templates for change?

Today's new physicians are faced with an awesome array of often conflicting challenges: assimilating the vast and ever-increasing base of scientific knowledge, coping with societal concerns over the cost of medical care, dealing with ethical dilemmas surrounding life-sustaining technology, and recognizing the changing nature of the physician-patient relationship. To better equip physicians in training for the professional challenges that lie ahead, some medical schools have studied and experimented with innovations in curricula. In this article, the authors present a survey of the literature concerning medical school curricula innovations for the past ten years. The conclusion which emerges from this study is that 'short-term programs not integrated into the medical school environment are not worth pursuing. A more radical restructuring of medical education is needed.