[Medical education centers: strategies and purpose]

The introduction of new didactic guidelines, for the graduate degrees in medicine and allied disciplines, is secondary to the new needs of the National Health Care System, and in part to the significant developments of science. It is not easy to meet this challenge. It is likewise not easy to channel coherently the required changes, with respect to the scientific, clinical and didactic goals. Paradoxically the same institutions that are in such great need of transformation, are also a significant part of the existing problem. In many countries, schools of medicine have developed centers for medical education that are geared toward the development and growth of students, teachers-tutors, and patients alike. Medical education has become more global, in an attempt to meet much needed communication needs, from both ends, teachers and students, as well as the recipients of care, patients. One major goal of such centers is the introduction of innovative didactic activities. There is indeed a new tendency toward the development of methodological tracks aiming at the acquisition and consolidation of a deeper and broader cultural knowledge. Amongst these initiatives there is the introduction of an evaluation of the teaching delivered, as well as the development of a multidisciplinary approach to didactics. The latter, is a prerequisite of an effective training directed toward the development of the concept of "team approach", whose ultimate goal is patient care. In Italy, at the Università Campus Biomedico, in Rome, one of the first of such centers of medical education has been developed. Its goal is to be both a learning organization, as well as a center for both research and clinical services.