In recent years the Association of American Medical Colleges has conducted meetings to explore various aspects of medical education. The present volume, which continues the pattern of its predecessors, studies the problems engendered by the current emphasis on research.
The tremendous amounts of money now available for research have necessarily altered our values in a manner which affects virtually every aspect of education. Present-day medical education represents a complex ecology involving teachers and researchers, salaries and budgets, "soft" and "hard" money, foundations and bureaucrats, hoards of trustees and administrative officers, taxpayers, practitioners, sick patients and hospital personnel, and, let us not forget, medical students. There are even some dull overtones which hint at political specters and hobgoblins.
Current stress on research has affected many different ecological components. The present volume, which deals with a few of these aspects, has a logical arrangement. Successive chapters in the book analyze the ways