A study to examine whether the basic sciences are appropriately organized to meet the future needs of medical education.

There is a growing divergence between the content of research activities in the basic sciences and that of the traditional preclinical courses for medical students. A 1977 study at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (Penn) examined the organization of the school's basic sciences, including surveying the research interests and departmental affiliations of 101 basic science faculty at Penn and interviewing the basic science departments chairmen there and at five other research-intensive schools of medicine. The findings demonstrated overlapping interests among basic science investigators, significant blurring of departmental boundaries, and a divergence between the faculty members' research interests and the disciplines represented by the departments in which these faculty held appointments. A second study a decade later documented that this divergence had increased. This paper also addresses the mounting concern among medical educators in response to these kinds of developments, the effect of such developments on medical education, and issues concerning the teaching of basic sciences, course content, the responsibility of schools of medicine for effecting change, and a possible model for basic science instruction.