Medical Education: Past, Present and Future

Before 1930, medical schools in the United States were relatively simple institutions with small basic-science departments and largely volunteer clinical faculty members who donated time taken from their private practice of medicine. Education for the medical degree was almost the only mission of the institution. Little effort was devoted to biomedical research and patient care. It was easy for the institutions to march to the clear beat of a single drummer.Changes that began during World War II and accelerated over the next three decades transformed medical schools into large, complex academic medical centers with a vast array of inter-related . . .