Predoctoral and postdoctoral neuroscience training. Summary of discussions.

Abstract

TEACHERS who can inspire students are no commoner and no less important in the neurosciences than in education generally. If students are to be interested in, and kept in, the neurosciences, teachers of high ability and interest in their subject must get to the medical student early, and frequently. Men of such calibre are particularly essential to any effort to establish integrated programs for teaching neural sciences; integrated teaching requires more of the teacher —more of his time and much more of his ability to project his facts and his approaches from his own discipline to related ones— than does traditional departmental teaching. Despite some important recent steps to redress the balance, the tangible rewards of teaching in most medical schools are still less than those of either individual research or clinical practice. The ideal teacher is one who combines teaching with research or practice or both, and we