Contemporary Medical Students Research Articles

Analysis of the Connotation and Strategies of Traditional Chinese Medicine Cultural Education in Medical Colleges and Universities

The culture of Chinese medicine is profound and has a long history, and is an important part of Chinese civilization. Its core values of “benevolence, harmony, refinement and integrity” are of great significance to the ideological and political education and cultivation of humanistic qualities of contemporary medical students. However, the current education and teaching of traditional Chinese medicine culture in medical colleges and universities can hardly meet the needs of today's medical students, and the deepening and upgrading of traditional Chinese medicine culture education is particularly urgent. In order to effectively deal with this challenge, medical schools can combine TCM culture with curriculum ideology and politics, training programs, campus culture construction and social practice, so as to promote students to better understand and practice the spirits of TCM culture.

Investigation on the Current Situation of Life Education and Reflection on the General Goal of Life Education for Contemporary Chinese Medical Students

Life education is an important subject of contemporary college education. The responsibility and pressure of contemporary college students are increasing rapidly, but the overall construction of psychological consultation and mental health courses in China is not mature, there still remaining the difficulty to solve psychological problems of college students from the source. At present, the importance of life education has been generally recognized all over the world, and amounts of increasingly perfect life education systems in schools, families, society and other aspects have been established, so as to effectively and permanently protect the mental health of college students. This article conducts an overall investigation on the current situation of life education in China and other countries, and discusses the overall goal of life education for contemporary Chinese medical students for reference.

Investigation on the Current Situation of Life Education and Reflection on the General Goal of Life Education for Contemporary Chinese Medical Students

Life education is an important subject of contemporary college education. The responsibility and pressure of contemporary college students are increasing rapidly, but the overall construction of psychological consultation and mental health courses in China is not mature, there still remaining the difficulty to solve psychological problems of college students from the source. At present, the importance of life education has been generally recognized all over the world, and amounts of increasingly perfect life education systems in schools, families, society and other aspects have been established, so as to effectively and permanently protect the mental health of college students. This article conducts an overall investigation on the current situation of life education in China and other countries, and discusses the overall goal of life education for contemporary Chinese medical students for reference.

Career Expectations of Obstetrics and Gynecology Residents and Future Residents.

To understand contemporary fourth-year medical student and resident career expectations in obstetrics and gynecology. Students invited for obstetrics and gynecology residency interviews and residents (postgraduate years 1-4) at the University of Colorado, University of Washington, University of California San Francisco, Loyola University, St. Joseph's Hospital, and Texas A&M in 2016-2017 received a voluntary, electronic survey regarding career expectations. Questions were compared between students and residents using a χ test for category responses and for age a two-sample t test. Response rates were similar between students (68% [277/409]) and residents (63% [97/153]). Residents compared with students were more frequently planning to enter private practice (43% vs 19%) and less frequently planning an academic career (19.4% vs 30.4%) or subspecialties (38% vs 51%) (P<.001). Although most respondents planned to work full-time (96% vs 94.9%), 83% (vs 94%) of residents planned to work greater than 40 hours per week (P<.001). Respondents reported greater than $150,000 in educational debt (65%) and anticipated starting salary greater than $200,000 (89%). More residents planned to retire by age 60 years (23% vs 7%) (P<.001). Thirty-eight percent of residents reported having changed career plans during residency, citing work-life balance as the most important factor (89%). Trainees' career expectations appear to evolve over time moving toward a higher likelihood to pursue private practice, work fewer hours, and retire earlier despite large educational debt. It is critical that the specialty understand these trends when planning to address national workforce needs.

Contemporary Medical Students' Perceptions of the Hippocratic Oath.

The Hippocratic Oath is a standard of medical ethics. Oath adaptations are common. Objective: Evaluate students' perceptions regarding the oath. Design: Survey of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical School graduating students regarding the oath's relevance, content, and application, and whether a choice of version should be provided. Forty-two of the fifty-three students (79 percent) considered the original oath relevant. Most (53 percent) disagreed that the oath in its original form be used, and most preferred a modified oath. More agreed (40 percent) than disagreed (28 percent) on providing a choice of version of the oath. The mean of correct answers as to the original oath's contents was 68 percent. Euthanasia and abortion prohibitions were recognized by 68 percent and 62 percent, respectively. Increased knowledge of the original's contents correlated with decreased desire that it be used (p = .02). Recognition of euthanasia/abortion prohibitions was significantly better for those in disagreement than in agreement that the original be used. Those who disagreed that a choice of oath versions be provided had significantly better knowledge of the original's euthanasia/abortion prohibitions than those who agreed. However, those who felt strongly that a choice should or should not be given each had a 100 percent accuracy of identifying euthanasia/abortion prohibitions. Most students preferred an adapted oath to the original. Increased student knowledge of the original oath's contents, including reference to euthanasia/abortion, significantly correlated with decreased desire to use it. Given the original's importance in medical ethics, this is concerning. A subset of students, however, affirmed the original's value and desired its use. Improved education in the Hippocratic oath is important, given modern medicine's complex moral issues. The Hippocratic oath is a standard of medical ethics. Oath adaptations eliminating the original's prohibitions of abortion/euthanasia are common. Most medical students who were questioned preferred the adapted oath to the original. Only two-thirds recognized the original's prohibitions of abortion/euthanasia. Those who knew of the original oath's prohibitions also had a decreased desire that it be used. Students disagreeing that a choice of versions of the oath be provided had better knowledge of these prohibitions. This is concerning, given the original oath's importance in medical ethics including at the 1945-1949 Nuremberg trials. Nonetheless, a subset of students affirmed the original Hippocratic oath's importance, desiring its use.

Must we remain blind to undergraduate medical ethics education in Africa? A cross-sectional study of Nigerian medical students

BackgroundAs the practice of medicine inevitably raises both ethical and legal issues, it had been recommended since 1999 that medical ethics and human rights be taught at every medical school. Most Nigerian medical schools still lack a formal undergraduate medical ethics curriculum. Medical education remains largely focused on traditional medical science components, leaving the medical students to develop medical ethical decision-making skills and moral attitudes passively within institutions noted for relatively strong paternalistic traditions.In conducting a needs assessment for developing a curriculum germane to the Nigerian society, and by extension most of Sub-Saharan Africa, this study determined the views of Nigerian medical students on medical ethics education, ethical issues related to the doctor-patient relationship and the ethical/professional dilemmas they are confronted with.MethodsUsing self-administered 63-item structured questionnaires, a cross-sectional survey of the final year medical students of the University of Nigeria was conducted in July 2015.Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software (SPSS Version 17), frequency counts and percentages were generated.ResultsThe sample included 100 males (71.4%) and 40 females (28.6%), with the respective mean (SD) age being 24.6(5.61) and 21.8 (6.38) years. Only 35.7% were satisfied with their medical ethics knowledge, and 97.9% indicated that medical ethics should be taught formally. Only 8.6% had never witnessed a medical teacher act unethically. The dilemmas of poor communication between physicians and patients, and the provision of sub-standard care were reported highest for being encountered ‘often’. A majority (60.7%) indicated that “a doctor should do his best always, irrespective of the patient’s wishes”. No significant difference in responses across gender was noted.ConclusionThere is a strong desire by the contemporary Nigerian medical student for medical ethics education. Their lack of exposure in medical ethics in an ethically challenging environment suggest a dire need for the development of an appropriate medical ethics curriculum for them and the provision of an ethically conducive learning environment.

Medical student use of digital learning resources

University students expect to use technology as part of their studies, yet health professional teachers can struggle with the change in student learning habits fuelled by technology. Our research aimed to document the learning habits of contemporary medical students during a clinical rotation by exploring the use of locally and externally developed digital and print self-directed learning resources, and study groups. We investigated the learning habits of final-stage medical students during their clinical paediatric rotation using mixed methods, involving learning analytics and a student questionnaire. Learning analytics tracked aggregate student usage statistics of locally produced e-learning resources on two learning management systems and mobile learning resources. The questionnaire recorded student-reported use of digital and print learning resources and study groups. The students made extensive use of digital self-directed learning resources, especially in the 2weeks before the examination, which peaked the day before the written examination. All students used locally produced digital formative assessment, and most (74/98; 76%) also used digital resources developed by other institutions. Most reported finding locally produced e-learning resources beneficial for learning. In terms of traditional forms of self-directed learning, one-third (28/94; 30%) indicated that they never read the course textbook, and few students used face-to-face 39/98 (40%) or online 6/98 (6%) study groups. Learning analytics and student questionnaire data confirmed the extensive use of digital resources for self-directed learning. Through clarification of learning habits and experiences, we think teachers can help students to optimise effective learning strategies; however, the impact of contemporary learning habits on learning efficacy requires further evaluation. Health professional teachers can struggle with the change instudent learning habits fuelled by technology.

Attitudes and practices of medical students regarding video-games: should community medicine educationists get serious about serious games

Background: Present medicos belong to a generation called ‘Millennials’ or ‘Net Generation’. They spend less time reading, and are more comfortable in image-rich environments provided by New Media. The objective of the study is to identify knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical students regarding video-games, with the aim of prompting community medicine teachers to consider serious games as a teaching-learning tool.Methods: The study was conducted among undergraduate medical students who self-administered a structured questionnaire eliciting their practices and attitudes regarding video-games, perceptions regarding impact of video-gaming on their academic performances and acceptability of serious games as a learning tool in community medicine.Results: A total of 255 medical students participated in the study, out of which 242 (94.9%) were current video-gamers. The students started playing video-games at a mean age of 11.72+3.63 years. Mobile phones were the commonest platform for video-gaming. The median duration of video-gaming was 150 minutes/week, with semi-inter-quartile range of 255 minutes. 57.4% of students reported that video-games helped them relax, while 26% felt that video-gaming increased their skills. The study revealed that 43.6% students were aware of serious games and 22.7% had used them as a learning tool in last three months. Moreover, about 95% of medicos welcomed learning of community medicine through serious games.Conclusions: The study reveals that contemporary medical students are spending considerable time playing video-games. It also shows that the learner is willing to learn community medicine through serious games. The study prompts community medicine educationists to consider serious games as a teaching-learning tool.

Educational Debt in the Context of Career Planning: A Qualitative Exploration of Medical Student Perceptions

ABSTRACTPhenomenon: Medical students in the United States face increasing educational debt because medical education costs have risen while public investment in higher education has declined. Contemporary students borrow more money and accumulate debt far surpassing that of previous generations of physicians, and both interest rates and terms of loan repayment have changed significantly in the last decade. As a result, the experiences of medical students differ from the experiences of physician educators. Little is known about how contemporary medical students view their debt in the context of career planning. Understanding contemporary U.S. medical students’ lived experiences of educational debt is important, because high debt levels may affect medical students’ well-being and professional development. Approach: The study's purpose was to explore contemporary students’ views of their debt in the context of career planning. In 2012, 2nd-year medical students enrolled in a health policy course at one medical school were invited to write an essay about how debt influences their career choices. The authors analyzed 132 essays using immersion and crystallization and iterative, team-based coding. Code-recode strategies, member checking, and reflexivity ensured validity and rigor. Findings: Three themes emerged about the meaning of debt: debt symbolizes lack of social investment, debt reinforces a sense of entitlement, and debt is a collective experience. Four approaches to debt management emerged: anticipation, avoidance, acceptance, and disempowerment. Insights: Medical students’ views of debt are more complex than previously reported. Medical educators should recognize that many students experience debt as a stressor, acknowledge students’ emotions about debt, and invite discussion about the culture of entitlement in medical education and how this culture affects students’ professionalism. At the same time, educators should emphasize that students have many repayment options and that regardless of specialty choice, most physicians repay their debts without significant difficulty. Further exploration is needed of the relationships between the amount of debt owed, students’ attitudes toward their debt, and other student characteristics. Because students experience debt in a range of ways, more nuanced approaches to understanding and reframing student perceptions of debt are necessary.

A Multinational Perspective on “Lifestyle” and Other Perceptions of Contemporary Medical Students About General Surgery

The aim of this multinational study was to measure and describe the perceptions of medical students toward general surgery as a career choice with a particular emphasis on "lifestyle." Past studies from individual countries have considered the perceptions of medical students toward general surgery. No multinational study to compare the perceptions of medical students from different geographic and socioeconomic regions toward general surgery, has been broadly disseminated. A survey about student perceptions of a general surgery career was distributed to 9 medical schools in 8 countries. Two-way analysis of variance was performed on the basis of country, level of economic development [Human Development Index (HDI)], and sex. A total of 841 respondents were included in the study with a response rate of 60%. The overall rate of interest toward general surgery as a career choice was 24%. We noted differences in the reasons behind why medical students choose general surgery between very high HDI countries and medium/high HDI countries. In contrast, the most important reason for not choosing general surgery was found to be due to perceptions of an unpleasant lifestyle. The negative influence of "lifestyle" persisted across all countries, both sexes, and all levels of socioeconomic development. The negative influence of lifestyle is the most important reason why contemporary medical students from different parts of the world choose not to pursue general surgery. Strategies to counteract the perceived unfriendly nature of the lifestyle are essential to increase the interest of contemporary medical students toward general surgery.

Administrative internship for training medical students of comprehensive quality

Medical postgraduates are the future core force of clinical diagnosis and treatment,scientific research,education and sanitary administration.Therefore,to cultivate qualified professionals,the key of contemporary medical postgraduate education is to pay more attention to comprehensive quality training in order to make students adapt to the continuous development of society and medical model.The First Clinical College in Wuhan University has implemented the hospital administration internship in combination with social needs and explored the education model of contemporary medical students with comprehensive quality. Key words: Administration; Practice; Medical postgraduate; Comprehensive quality

Relationship between perfectionism and procrastination among medica students

Objective To explore the relationship between perfectionism and procrastination among medical students.Methods 327 medical students of two medical universities in Guangzhou were investigated by the chinese Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale and the Aitken Procrastination Inventory.Results Compared with ordinary college students, medical students got higher scores on CM (12.87 ± 5.017 vs 11.5 ± 4.9), PE ( 14.89 ± 4.603 vs 13.6 ± 5.1 ) and Negative Perfectionism (58.08 ± 12.716 vs 56.1 ± 12.4), but got lower scores on PS (18.00±4.679 vs 18.7 ±5.2).There is the significant negative correlation between OR and procrastination (P＜ 0.001 ).CM, DA, Negative Perfectionism score and procrastination have notable positive correlation (P＜0.01 ).The results of regression analysis show that OR and DA can predict procrastination (P＜0.01).Conclusions Compared with ordinary college students, the perfectionism among contemporary medical students is higher and high negative perfectionist behaves with more procrastination. Key words: Medical students; Perfectionism; Procrastination

An Evaluation of Depressed Mood in Two Classes of Medical Students

To assess depression rates in contemporary medical students. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was administered anonymously to two medical school classes at matriculation, the end of first year, and the end of second year. Median scores for both classes were low at all points. The proportion of students scoring in the moderate or severely depressed range increased from 5.8% at matriculation to 10.5% by end of Year 2 for the Class of 2004, and from 5.1% to 11.9% over the same time period for the Class of 2005. Overall, 75-83% of students at every administration scored in the lowest BDI score range. The percentage of medical students who experience depressed mood increased over time, but to a lesser degree than in previous studies.

Contemporary medical studentsʼ quest for self-fulfillment through community service

The author argues against the criticism that contemporary medical students, like most educated youth in our society, are self-centered moral relativists without a sense of social responsibility. He first frames his argument in terms of what Charles Taylor calls the three "malaises of modernity," namely, the rise of individualism, an emphasis on instrumental reasoning based on bureaucratic efficiency, and the loss of political action. He goes on to show how these malaises are manifested in the academic health center and their effect on the professional socialization of future physicians. Then, using John Evan's perspective of the need to shift from "supply-side" to "demand-side" thinking in the way today's medical students are trained and Hafferty and Frank's thesis that the most critical determinants of a physician's identity operate not within the formal curriculum but in a "hidden curriculum," he presents his own case of how Rush medical students, by participating in student-generated, voluntary projects--via the Rush Community Service Initiatives Program--are harnessing their individualism through commitment to serving the poor and disadvantaged. To show that the situation at Rush is not unique, the author also points to the impact that the Health of the Public and service-learning programs have been having both in academic health centers and in the communities being served. Finally, it is his contention that these community service experiences, given unconditionally to people in need, broaden the students' education by offering a population and community perspective of health and illness and, perhaps more important, bind them closer to society in both a moral and a political sense.

Editor's Column

^Editor's Column Literature and Medicine concludes its first year of semiannual publication with this general issue. The special excitement of preparing a general issue comes, in large part, precisely from not knowing in advance what shape the issue will take. The form emerges gradually, as essays are submitted, reviewed, and accepted, and similarities of theme or approach become apparent. Even though there was no declared theme for this collection, the essays seem to fall naturally into two clusters. In the first cluster, three essays and a group of drawings deal in different ways with the doctor-patient relationship—more specifically, with the difficulty of developing and maintaining, simultaneously, the objective, scientific gaze and the subjective, empathie understanding that are essential to good medical practice. In the second cluster, three essays explore the boundaries between literature and psychiatry by examining literary representations of alcoholism, sexual impotence, and transference-countertransference love. The first cluster opens with "Patient Stories, Doctor Stories, and True Stories: A Cautionary Reading," an essay in which Nancy M. P. King and Ann Folwell Stanford borrow the concepts monologic and dialogic from the literary theorist M. M. Bakhtin to identify their concerns about ethical issues that arise in interpreting patients' stories. As illustrations of these concerns, they examine two stories by well-known physicianwriters —Richard Selzer's "Brute" and William Carlos Williams's "A Face of Stone." One text, they argue, presents a monologic reading because it reflects only the physician's voice during an encounter with a patient; the other develops from monologic to dialogic. King and Stanford caution that interpretation of patients and their stories should be a collaborative process involving physician and patient; it should emerge through a dialogue reflecting a more equitable, shared relationship than the traditional , paternalistic one. How to prepare medical students for their encounters with patients is the concern of the next essay, "Charting Dante: The Inferno and Medical Education," by Anne Hunsaker Hawkins. She argues that the journey through Dante's Inferno and the journey through medical school are analogous in important ways and that reading the Inferno can help medLiterature and Medicine 11, no. 2 (Fall 1992) vii-ix © 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University Press EDITOR'S COLUMN ical students master the antithetical skills that are essential for good medical practice: "the objective gaze and the subjective understanding" (p. 204). Both Dante the pilgrim and contemporary medical students must learn about the abstract categories of sin or disease by encountering the suffering "of the actual human beings who embody" those abstractions (p. 201). Achieving the appropriate detached concern, as it has become known in medical education, is the task of Dante the pilgrim just as much as it is of medical students.1 In "Seeing Patients," Mary G. Winkler expresses the same concerns but discusses them in relation to the visual arts. She traces the development of two opposing traditions in Western history, both beginning in the Renaissance: the ideal of rational, scientific observation that led to the objective medical gaze and technological imaging; and the concept of the individual as it is expressed in the subjective art of portraiture. Winkler believes that the physician-artist Alan Blum reconciles these two historical traditions when he sketches his patients. Literature and Medicine continues its commitment to the visual arts by presenting a selection of Blum's sketches as a special feature of this issue. The essays in the literature-and-psychiatry cluster are ordered chronologically according to the literary works they discuss. In the first essay of this section, "Tragedy of the Commonplace: The Impact of Addiction on Families in the Fiction of Thomas Hardy," Timothy M. Rivinus looks at three late-nineteenth-century novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge , Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure, through the lens of contemporary knowledge of alcoholism and its effects on families, especially the adult children, of alcoholics. By considering many of Hardy's characters as victims of alcoholism, he provides clinical validation for the accuracy of Hardy's characterizations. In so doing, he implicitly takes to task those literary critics who have regarded the characterizations in these novels as flawed. More important to Rivinus, however , is the role that...

A Medical School Chaplaincy

Describes characteristics of contemporary medical school students and how these determine the forms of ministry to them. Elaborates on teaching and counseling roles of the chaplaincy program at Yale School of Medicine. Defines the qualities of a chaplain working within a medical school setting.

The Indigestible Curriculum

Pity the plight of the contemporary medical student: his or her curriculum holds more material than can be digested even by the most zealous of students. The technological and scientific knowledge explosion since World War II has deluged the medical student with an enormous learning burden. The volume of information that must be committed to memory in order to pass National Board Examinations is truly staggering, not to mention the intellectual gymnastics required to integrate and employ such knowledge in the daily practice of clinical medicine. 1 Is it any wonder that more and more of our medical students and junior house staff seek psychiatric support for troubled emotional lives, divorce, and substance abuse? Furthermore, professional fatigue or burn out is all too common in middle-aged physicians. 24 We contend that an important factor in the genesis of these adverse emotional states is the extraordinary pressure generated by the large

The Historical Role of the Dick Test

The contemporary medical student who reads in 1983 the brief<i>JAMA</i>article that was written by the Dicks¹some 60 years ago could well wonder why it was selected by the current editors ofThe Journalas a historical highlight of modern medicine. After all, scarlet fever is now a relatively rare and not serious disease. It is no more dangerous an affliction than is a nonscarlatinal streptococcal infection of comparable severity. Indeed, the scarlatinal rash actually may be diagnostically helpful in signaling the cause of an acute pharyngitis or, indeed, in flagging an outbreak of such infections. With the advent of antibiotics, this erstwhile feared and dramatic disease has been dropped almost universally from the list of quarantinable contagious diseases by local health authorities. The rash that is produced by the streptococcal erythrogenic toxin is now likely to be regarded as a clinical curiosity of some theoretical interest

Toward an adequate pool of clinical investigators.

COMMENTARY AND DISCUSSION Toward an Adequate Pool of Clinical Investigators fOHN F. SHERMAN* A primary cause of our concern has been an alarming decrease in the number of qualified young physicians who seek training opportunities for careers in academic medicine with an emphasis on clinical research. The extent of this concern may be measured by the fact that it has been the theme of three recent presidential addresses of the American Federation for Clinical Research and the Association of American Physicians. Avoiding the temptation to add another voice to the definition of clinical investigation, I shall refer only to the necessity of assuring an adequate pool of physicians undertaking research which involves human subjects in one manner or another. I propose to address four areas of importance : The first has to do with money or funding for research, especially for clinical investigation and the training for careers in it; the second speaks to changes which are occurring in our institutions and their faculties; the third, which I have not heard mentioned during this meeting, is the influence ofthe clinical specialty boards; and the fourth is the hopeful sign of a heightened interest in research on the part of contemporary medical students. First, the level of funding for biomedical research. I seriously doubt that Swisher's prediction of a "relatively major retrenchment in biomedical research" will occur. There is no question that the rate of increase in support has diminished in recent years, but the data displayed by Bever and Whedon earlier in this volume refute some of the claims about cuts in funding levels. This is not to say that we could not effectively use more money or that we should not mount vigorous efforts to assure a reasonable rate of growth in funding for health-sciences research. Such efforts ?Vice-president, Association of American Medical Colleges, 1 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007.© 1980 by The University of Chicago. 0031-5982/80/2322-0156$01.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Winter 1980 · Part 2 S79 must include a greater emphasis on financial support from sources other than the federal government. The probability of greater competition for federal funds for all domestic programs heightens the need for more vigorous, sophisticated, and continuing efforts on behalf of our cause. Because of preoccupations with the direct funding of research, too little attention has been paid, in my opinion, to the impact of the massive funding in recent years for health services. That revenue, which is derived from a combination of public and private sources, has resulted in increasing distractions to both faculty and institutional officials. As Skinner pointed out earlier, income from private-practice plans has become, for both individual faculty members in clinical departments and for the medical schools as a whole, a larger source of revenue than that from biomedical and behavioral research. In addition, these sources of income , particularly from Titles 18 and 19 of the Social Security Act, have brought a flood of time-consuming and costly regulations. I suggest that these circumstances cannot help but distract the institutions' staff from research and must represent a significant influence on the career decisions of young M.D.'s. As for changes within the institutions and their faculties, I find myself in mild disagreement with Swisher's generalization that the "newer, smaller, less-known, and fiscally weaker medical schools" would probably suffer more heavily from cutbacks in federal funding than the "older, prestigious schools of the East Coast where many academic people are now trained." My disagreement arises, first of all, from the fact that many of the newer schools, usually having state support, are probably fiscally stronger than some of the older schools, especially those in the private sector. Furthermore, data from the NIH show that four of the West Coast schools have been among the leaders in NIH funding in recent years. More important, the emphases on primary care and community involvement and the competition for research funds have resulted in the emergence of two types of schools within the institutional population: The first are those which have traditionally carried on a major program in biomedical and behavioral research, and the second are more oriented...

Why is medical school difficult? Or, if it isn't difficult, why it should be.

Given the intellect and motivation of the idealized contemporary medical student and the structure of contemporary medical education, one might not expect medical school to be difficult; experience dictates otherwise. Since medical school prepares one to become a physician, the inherent difficulty of medical school is expected to lie in the areas of the physician's attitudes, skills, and knowledge. This expectation is not supported; instead it is suggested that the difficulty may actually reside in the fact that the student must negotiate three different learning styles in the course of only two years.