An interdisciplinary course in the basic sciences for senior medical and PhD students

Integrating clinical and basic sciences throughout the medical school curri culum has become a major objective of various innovations in medical educat ion. While early clinical exposure has evolved as an efficient means of int roducing clinical studies in the preclinical years, interdisciplinary integ ration of basic sciences during the clinical years remains a challenge. The authors describe their three years of experience with an interdisciplinary course designed to demonstrate the continuum of medical information from t he clinic to the basic sciences. In this course, sixth-year medical student s are required to choose one of three to four different one-week programs, each of which requires them to conduct an in-depth investigation of a defin ed clinical topic. Program coordinators are encouraged to work in clinician -basic scientist teams and to use a variety of teaching methods, with an em phasis on tutored individual and group learning based on critical readings of original papers. Coordinators are also encouraged to enable graduate res earch students to participate. From 1998 to 2000, students participated in nine programs, seven of which were coordinated by interdisciplinary teams. Several clinical and basic science disciplines were represented in each pro gram, and various teaching methods were used. Graduate students participate d in two of the programs. Evaluation of the programs (a debriefing discussi on as well as short written evaluations) indicated moderate to good achieve ment of the course objectives.