Beyond curriculum reform

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Throughout this century there have been many efforts to reform the medical curriculum . These efforts have largely been unsuccessful in producing fundamental changes in the training of medical students . The author challenges the traditional notion that changes to medical education are most appropriately made at the level of the curriculum , or the formal educational programs and instruction provided to students . Instead , he proposes that the medical school is best thought of as a “ learning environment ” and that reform initiatives must be undertaken with an eye to what students learn instead of what they are taught . This alternative framework distinguishes among three interrelated components of medical training : the formal curriculum , the informal curriculum , and the hidden curriculum . The author gives basic definitions of these concepts , and proposes that the hidden curriculum needs particular exploration . To uncover their institution's hidden curricula , he suggests that educators and administrators examine four areas : institutional policies , evaluation activities , resource-allocation decisions , and institutional “ slang .” He also describes how accreditation standards and processes might be reformed . He concludes with three recommendations for moving beyond curriculum reform to reconstruct the overall learning environment of medical education , including how best to move forward with the Medical School Objectives Project sponsored by the AAMC .

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: