Editorial: Curriculum changes

Duke's School of Medicine is clearly one of the best medical schools in the nation, with a superb faculty that produces excellent research. But other than its superior quality in scholarship, the medical school is also noteworthy for its rather unique curriculum, which differs from the curriculum of almost every other top medical school.

However, the current curriculum has been in place since the 1960s, and it is time for the medical school to revisit how it educates future doctors and make changes to update the curriculum to reflect both the current state of medicine and the current views on how doctors should best be trained.

Recently released plans for a revised curriculum promise to maintain many of the elements that make Duke's curriculum so unique, in particular a third year that is almost entirely unconstrained, leaving students free to do their own research. The new curriculum will require all students to write a thesis during this third year, a change that promises to make students more accountable for their work during that year and to encourage the best possible research from students. Students should make the most of this opportunity, perhaps with the goal of ultimately getting their theses published.

As always, the medical school faces the challenge of balancing the desire and need to train doctors as practitioners and to train the next generation of medical researchers. The thesis requirement seems to promote research, but other elements of the curricular reorganization place more emphasis on elements like applications to human pathology and more organ-based medicine, both of which train students as practitioners.

One caution is that the medical school's Curriculum Committee seems to have some internal rifts about how it should do its job and the pace of the work. Hopefully, these internal rifts can be smoothed over as the curriculum planning enters its final phase.

Overall, the medical school's plans are a welcome revision of a unique curriculum that maintains Duke's distinctive flair. However, it is not the curriculum that makes a great medical school. It is great faculty and research - and the ability to attract the very best students - that make a medical school great, and Duke will continue to be able to do this well into the future.