In search of the biopsychosocial perspective: an experiment with beginning medical students.

The authors assessed the clinical thinking of medical students before, during, and after their first extensive in-hospital learning experience and exposure to physician role models. They found that more than 90% of the students' requests for additional data in response to videotaped simulated patient interviews were for biologic information; approximately 66% of all respondents in six separate trials failed to request a single psychological or social item concerning the patient. The authors discuss the pervasiveness of the biomedical rather than the biopsychosocial mentality and its implications for medical education as well as clinical teaching, decision making, and practice.