Developing a Scientific Basis of Medicine Framework in Curriculum Renewal: The IDEAL Model

Abstract

Medical schools are engaged in curricular renewal to meet the demands of training physicians in a changing healthcare environment for the twenty-first century. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reassess the breath and depth of basic sciences required to train physicians, and how the basic sciences can be integrated into a medical curriculum. During our curriculum renewal process, the Scientific Basis of Medicine Task Force Group developed a framework of how the sciences that are fundamental to the understanding and practice of medicine can be used to support clinical reasoning skills. This paper describes the framework and proposes strategies of how educators can use it to incorporate a sound and relevant scientific basis into curricula. We highlight important issues pertaining to teaching, learning, faculty development, and evaluation in this framework.