We used data from the 1999-2000 Liaison Committee on
Medical
Education Annual Medical School Questionnaire, which had a 100%
response rate, and other sources to describe the status of
medical
education programs in the United States. In 1999-2000, the
number of
full-time faculty members was 102,446, a 4.3% increase from
1998-1999. The number of basic science faculty increased by less
than
0.5%, while the number of clinical faculty increased by about
5%.
There were 38,529 medical school applicants in 1999, a 6%
decrease from 1998. Women constituted 45.8% and underrepresented
minorities made up 12.1% of the 1999-2000 first-year class. New
content, such as alternative medicine and cultural competence,
and new
methods of instruction, such as computer-based learning, are
being
incorporated by many schools. Seventy schools (56% of the total)
require students to pass both Step 1 and Step 2 of the US
Medical
Licensing Examination for advancement or graduation, an increase
from
62 schools (50%) in 1998-1999. The use of standardized methods
of
assessment, such as objective structured clinical examinations,
to
evaluate students' clinical performance was highly variable
among
schools.