Relevance and Rigor in Premedical Education

In recent decades, scientific knowledge has changed dramatically, once-settled scientific principles have been replaced by more sophisticated concepts and entirely new disciplines, and parallel changes have occurred in medical practice and health care delivery. In the face of these new realities, medical school curricula have had to adapt. Yet despite these sweeping changes, including the permeation of most areas of medicine by molecular and cellular biology and genetics, requirements for admission to medical school have remained virtually unchanged for many decades.Ironically, though many of today's high-school students are learning advanced science and mathematics that my generation studied in college . . .