Basic Professional Skills Research Articles

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Training History Students in Working Archives

MOST ARCHIVAL institutions have a continuing need for adequate personnel to process collections. An essential element in preparing prospective archivists and historians is the opportunity for the essential practice that leads to the mastery of basic professional skills. Too often, a promising archival collection lies untouched for want of a suitable index or inventory. Too often, a promising student does not develop full competence because of an academic program's inordinate reliance on theory or abstract exercises. Colorado State University's Department of History and the University Archives are cooperating to increase the accessibility of archival materials while providing graduate students with readily applicable training. Although not free of problems, these efforts have thus far produced some highly positive results.

Primary Care and Departments of Internal Medicine

Early in November 1973, the Association of Professors of Medicine met to discuss a topic of critical importance to the future of health care in the United States—the impact of primary care on departments of medicine. The topic could be cryptic because everyone there knew the genesis of the problem. After two centuries of evolution of medical teaching in this country, the department of medicine remains the pivotal, yet the most taken-for-granted element in the structure and function of the medical school. Consistently the largest department in terms of faculty size and man-hours of instruction, it has through the years held responsibility for developing in each student the basic professional skills and attitudes that are required for success in all branches of medicine. The identification of a majority of students with faculty mentors from this department has been a natural consequence, and in recent years, the internships most widely sought