No. 1: monitoring the new shorter clinical course at cambridge

This is the first in an occasional series of articles describing innovations, successful and unsuccessful, in medical education. I t is hoped that they may encourage others to attempt similar experiments4r warn them away from unprofitable avenues of development. The new Clinical Medical School at the University of Cambridge, UK, has established a project to monitor and evaluate its new, shorter course. The background to this unusual decision is described in this article, which then reviews possible evaluation methods, problems, and the planned strategy. The activities include measures of the school's 'ethos', the teaching/learning process, aspects of its cost, and the quality of its 'product'-the medical graduate. Experiences during the first 18 months of the project are reported.