Alcohol education and the medical student.

The development of a more sophisticated aetiological model of alcohol abuse and dependence has certain advantages when it comes to teaching medical students about the subject. The move away from a simplistic, unicausal model of disease coincides with more sophisticated notions of disease in medicine in general and alcoholism in particular can now be seen as a paradigm for many disorders. While the new model implicitly recognises the important role of non-medical professionals in the detection and management of alcohol-related problems, the protean manifestations of alcohol in general and specialised medical settings demands that tomorrow's doctors have an appropriately sophisticated model of the disorder and the abilities and skills necessary for its detection and management.