The educational process at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine: the first 25 years.

Although the Charter for the School of Medicine was signed in 1963, and active recruitment of faculty commenced almost immediately, the recruitment of students, in fact, did not begin until several years later, with admission of a first-year and a third-year class in September 1968. From that time to the present, the class size has increased from a small, carefully selected group of 36 first-year students to its current size of 115 students in each of the basic science years and 132 students in each of the clinical years. As one might imagine, over the ensuing two and a half decades, many changes have occurred in every aspect of the educational process. Throughout these years the School of Medicine has evaluated and reassessed its goals and objectives in order to continue to make the study and practice of medicine not only exciting but also meaningful and to advance knowledge of the scientific origins of disease and the quality of health care. This paper reviews the evolution of this process at the School of Medicine as well as outlines our educational agenda for the next decade.