Curricular integration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine.

In its combined Baccalaureate-M.D. degree program, the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine endeavors to foster interdisciplinary integration by intertwining the humanities, clinical medicine, and basic sciences throughout the curriculum. Analysis over 6 years (1986-1991) of 547 students' scores on comprehensive examinations and ratings of 464 to 478 graduates' clinical abilities suggest that the integrative elements of the curriculum have a counterpart in performance. Such experience would recommend possible steps to encourage interdisciplinary integration at other schools: allow students to acquire disciplinary understandings but offer early clinical exposure for context and relevance, arrange productive repetition of material, pair more with less advanced students for integrated learning, and choose faculty who model integration and expect students to do so.