A first-year, student-managed course to correlate basic sciences with clinical medicine

A course for first-year medical students was designed to illustrate the correlation of the biochemistry and physiology content of the curriculum with clinical applications. The course included early exposure of the students to clinical problems; the use of patients in the classroom; joint teaching by clinical and basic science faculties; independent learning, reading, and evaluation of the literature; and the use of reading, writing, and communication skills. The course was begun in 1981 as a faculty-directed course, but responsibility for the course was gradually transferred to the students until the entire presentation, from introduction and interview of the patient to the correlation of the clinical application with the basic sciences, was carried out by the students.