Medical School Inquiry

This open access book provides a systematic overview of experiences with Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) and undergraduate research (UR) in German universities, covering both research universities (Universitäten) and universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen). Divided into three parts, the book starts with the principles and common practices of IBL/UR at all universities. Part Two discusses the implementation of IBL/UR for twenty-one individual disciplines, ranging from architecture to theology. Part Three discusses the potential of IBL/UR in relation to several topics including diversity, digitalisation, different forms of universities, and the national job market. The book summarises the project of the German network of UR, comprising approximately 50 universities, and results of a national initiative called Qualitätspakt Lehre which is intended to improve teaching at German universities. Today IBL and UR are essential parts of high-impact education strategies for universities around the world. In his university reform plans of the early 19th century, Wilhelm von Humboldt introduced Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning as the core principle of the modern research university in Germany, as well as worldwide. IBL was re-discovered in the German university reform initiatives of the 1960s. Since then, IBL has been applied in teachers' education in German universities. The book presents IBL/UR experience as complementary to what is usually presented in English-speaking academia. In Germany, IBL/UR is applied broadly throughout the social sciences and planning, but not in the core sciences, whereas in the US undergraduate research is common in the sciences but less so in the social sciences. Moreover, in Germany, IBL/UR is often linked to applied and community-oriented research — something that is just emerging in the US.

Considers treatment and control of heart disease and cancer.

EDUCATING PHYSICIANS The current blueprint for medical education in North America was drawn up in 1910 by Abraham Flexner in his report Medical Education in the United States and Canada. The basic features outlined by Flexner remain in place today. Yet with the past century's enormous societal changes, the practice of medicine and its scientific, pharmacological, and technological foundations have been transformed. Now medical education in the United States is at a crossroads: those who teach medical students and residents must choose whether to continue in the direction established over a hundred years ago or to take a fundamentally different course, guided by contemporary innovation and new understandings about how people learn. Emerging from an extensive study of physician education by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Educating Physicians calls for a major overhaul of the present approach to preparing doctors for their careers. The text addresses major issues for the future of the field and takes a comprehensive look at the most pressing concerns in physician education today. The key findings of the study recommend four goals for medical education: standardization of learning outcomes and individualization of the learning process; integration of formal knowledge and clinical experience; development of habits of inquiry and innovation; and focus on professional identity formation. Like The Carnegie Foundation's revolutionizing Flexner Report of 1910, Educating Physicians is destined to change the way administrators and faculty in medical schools and programs prepare their physicians for the future.

In this extensively researched history of medical schools, William Rothstein, a leading historian of American medicine, traces the formation of the medical school from its origin as a source of medical lectures to its current status as a center of undergraduate and graduate medical education, biomedical research, and specialized patient care. Using a variety of historical and sociological techniques, Rothstein accurately describes methods of medical education from one generation of doctors to the next, illustrating the changing career paths in medicine. At the same time, this study considers medical schools within the context of the state of medical practice, institutions of medical care, and general higher education. The most complete and thorough general history of medical education in the United States ever written, this work focuses both on the historical development of medical schools and their current status.