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“Everyone’s so relaxed and noncompetitive. It’s easy to study in groups, and there’s far less stress than there was in my pre-med program. In fact, everyone’s quite happy. I can hardly believe it.” The atmosphere this student describes is not just an amenity here. The spirit of cooperation and respect among students, faculty, and administrators at Yale is a crucial component of the Yale System of medical education. What is the Yale System, as it is widely known?
In the first two years, there are no course grades and no class ranking. Class attendance is not recorded, and students are expected to make responsible decisions about the best use of their time.
The director of a course certifies that students have successfully fulfilled all course requirements and works with any student who needs to do further work to master the subject.
Grades on course examinations and other final exercises are given to help students evaluate their own progress; only the student knows his or her score.
Students are encouraged to advance at their own pace within the Yale curriculum. Although most complete the M.D. program in four years, as many as 40 percent of the students in each class make arrangements to spend an additional year without paying additional tuition.
Every M.D. student must complete a thesis that represents a substantial body of original research. The thesis project teaches students to wield the tools of scientific investigation.
At the beginning of the 1900s, training at all top medical schools was centered on the acquisition of skills, generally imparted to students exclusively in large lecture and demonstration settings. In the 1920s, Milton Winternitz, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, launched a revolutionary effort to transform medical instruction into an education in biomedical science and critical thinking, which he saw as the best foundation for clinical practice, scientific research, and medical leadership. Students would no longer be passive recipients of knowledge; they would be engaged, questioning innovators–as they would need to be once they were doctors. The Yale System has evolved along with the field of medicine. Today, the Dean’s Committee on Medical Education–composed of faculty, students, and deans–holds a broad mandate to keep the system flexible and responsive to current needs. The committee has recently recommended a forward-looking set of measures to increase integration across disciplines, across the four years of medical training, and across the realms of basic science and clinical practice. Yale stands out among medical schools in its commitment to student independence, exploration, and educational responsibility. All students are admitted without regard to financial circumstances, and generous financial aid enables any accepted student to come to Yale. Once here, each student makes his or her own choices about how best to use the opportunities Yale offers while mastering the clinical skills and developing the scientific framework necessary for a fruitful life in medicine. In turn, Yale devotes exceptional effort and resources in support of students. The combination of a carefully constructed curriculum, innovative educational philosophy, and supportive academic culture has nurtured thousands of physicians who have gone on from Yale to become leaders in many fields throughout the world. |
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Last modified: Wednesday, 11-Aug-2004 15:00:29 EDT. (PL) |