Integrating basic science and clinical teaching for third-year medical students.

A two-month program for third-year students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University provides a model for integrating basic sciences and clinical training. Entitled The Scientific Basis of Clinical Medicine, the course involves more than 100 basic science instructors and clinical instructors and is designed to foster recognition that good patient care requires physicians to evaluate the latest evidence of medical researchers. It also demonstrates the importance of lifelong learning in a field that constantly changes. Since 1978, the course has been offered in the spring of the third year after students as demonstrating "the continuum from basic science to clinical medicine" and as moderately successful in achieving its other objectives. Students view both its content and its less pressured environment after an intense year of clinical training as its major strengths.