S T A N F O R D M E D I C I N E

Volume 17 Number 3 FALL 2000

On the Cover

Admitting Women to Medical School for More than a Century. 

Cover illustration by Janet Woolley.

Stanford Medicine, published quarterly by Stanford University Medical Center, aims to keep readers informed about the education, research, clinical care and other goings on at the Medical Center.

 

  

For the special section for Alumni, click on the link below:
STANFORD
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Letter to the Editor

Wondering why lab classes lost their appeal

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE I enjoyed an article quite so much. ["The Move," Spring 2000 -- ed.] As a junior faculty person at Stanford in the late 1970s and early '80s, the article by Anne Rosenthal brought back a lot of memories. Pictures of old acquaintances like Avram (my wife used to work for Dody) and Hal Holman remind
me that I now probably look a lot older as well.

As someone who studies issues of medical education and professionalization, I have a question: In the article, one of the revolutionary changes at the new medical school was Fleischmann Labs -- with assigned space for each student. The text then goes on to note that the opting out of lab classes in the 1960s spelled the end of this grand innovation, with the space being converted to faculty space. My question deals with "why?" and "what happened?" The ideal of close working contact and informal exchange with faculty appears (by reading between the lines) to have died rather quickly. If so, I'd like to learn -- if possible -- a little more about this death.

Fred Hafferty

PROFESSOR,

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DULUTH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE