Toward defining the end product of medical education.

The development of medical school curricula has been difficult for many reasons. Underlying all of the problems is the failure to delineate the end-product of the educational process. Concomitantly, medical schools have not taken full advantage of many modern concepts of instructional technology. The result of these deficiencies has been a noteworthy lack of relevance as indicated by the low correlation between medical school grades and medical practice. In this paper a systematic approach for the training of one medical school product, the comprehensive care physician, is described. Differentiating between knowledge, skills, and attitudes which may be desired in the finished product, the paper suggests basic techniques which may be employed by curricular planners to facilitate various kinds of learning. Finally, the crucial importance of evaluation is stressed in terms of the necessity of finding appropriate measurements to determine whether the behavioral objectives have been met.