A Handbook for Change: Recommendations of the Joint Commission on Medical Education, Student American Medical Association

Abstract

The Future of Medical Education , by William G. Anlyan et al (Judy Graves, ed.), 192 pp, $8.50, Duke University Press, 1973. By coincidence two studies on medical education arrived in this editorial office almost simultaneously. One came from the Student American Medical Association which had set up a commission to consider problems in medical education, the other from a group of nationally prominent educators and administrators who addressed themselves to the same topic. This latter group had a rather confused provenance, but their level of officialdom is quite irrelevant. The report stands on its own merits as a collection of thoughtful opinions. The two books will certainly be significant in the history of ideas, for they indicate certain articulate viewpoints, vintage 1973. Whether these views have practical significance in changing the status quo is a totally different matter. The students' recommendations have two special merits. They provide an evaluation, a