Reform of Medical Education: The Effect of Student Unrest

Abstract

This symposium, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, contains 12 brief, excellent essays by students and educators of diverse nationality, background, and opinion. The subjects include medical educational reform in France, Japan, and Latin America; new medical schools in Germany and New Zealand; the views of medical students of different countries concerning medical reform and their participation in curricular revision; and the relationships of welfare systems and of biomedical research groups to the reorganization of medical schools. The book includes discussions as well as formal papers, and the sharp debates and critical analyses are of particular value. The historical influences upon medical education and practice, often neglected in the United States, are well presented. The problems of Latin America are predominantly those of a feudalistic social and university organization, while the rigid academic and administrative hierarchies of France have Renaissance and Napoleonic origin. Belgium is trapped in the nationalistic,