On the Care and Feeding of the Faculty

Abstract If medical students participate in the planning of educational programs, they will be confronted with some realities of academic life, and they will be challenged to assume some responsibility for nurturing and developing the excellent faculty they so ardently desire. They must be warned against the current enthusiasm for simplistic solutions, notably the expectation that the educational process of becoming a physician can be accelerated by the identification of "cores," by demonstration of immediate relevance, by clinical assignments before the basic disciplines have been mastered or by establishment of "specialty tracks" during the undergraduate curriculum. The function of the basic-science teaching, which provides the "languages" necessary to understand patients and disease, must be contrasted with that of clinical experience, which enables the student to assume the role of the physician. Insufficient attention has been paid by curriculum committees to identifying which "languages" are essential, and how much time in each clinical discipline is necessary to achieve the physician role.