Medicul Edircurion. 1982. 16. 5 2 5 3

A B S T R A C T

ANZAME Bulletin

Australasian and New Zealand Association for Medical Education

The new generation of doctors was the theme of the recent Australian Postgraduate Federation in Medi- cine Annual Forum. which for the first time was held in conjunction with ANZAME. This then was a step forward for ANZAME to be involved in the Annual Forum of this established organization with a long record of activity in postgraduate medical education.

Included in the July Bulletin are several papers from this recent Forum. Dr Sidney Sax. Special Adviser on Social Welfare Policy. Canberra. ad- dresses the type of patient the doctor will encounter in the future and its implications for undergraduate education. He argues that since the vast majority of episodes of illness occur outside the hospital. and since many cannot be cured in the conventional sense, students should be exposed to everyday problems in the community so that they can obtain some understanding of their natural history and of the realities of how people live.

The future skills of the family practitioner are discussed by Dr Wes Fabb, Director, Family Medi- cine Programme, Royal Australian College of Gen- eral Practitioners. The family doctor will offer more time, new skills and a caring attitude. These skills will include skill in listening. in problem-solving, in decision-making, in planning management and in counselling.

The teaching of clinical reasoning is reviewed by Dr Reuben Glass of Monash University. who indi- cates that, traditionally, a student is taught to complete history-taking and physical examination before attempting diagnosis. By stressing complete- ness, rather than relevance. teachers lay the founda- tion of an expensive pre-occupation with informa- tion-gathering for its own sake, and fail to explain the

techniques of clinical diagnosis. The methods used by all clinicians in gathering information are concisely presented.

Finally from the Forum is a paper by Dr David Newble in which he concisely presents an overview of his recent research and development of assessment of clinical competence within the Department of Medicine at the University of Adelaide.

Circulated as a supplement to the July Bulletin is ANZAME’s second Occasional Publication, ‘The Effective Use of Part-time Faculty’ by Dr Herb Swick. Associate Professor of Neurology and Pedia- trics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. This paper was written while Herb Swick was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Newcastle, New South Wales, under the auspices of the Australian-American Education Foundation.

The series of papers from the Postgraduate Fidera- tion in Medicine Forum is continued in the October Bulletin. This edition includes the opening address at the Forum which was given by the Vice-Chancel- lor of the University of Queensland who addresses the topic, “The Medical School within the University Community”. He clearly sees the need for medical education to be a university responsibility. He reviews the scientific development of medicine both in preclinical and clinical disciplines and argues that the university environment should play a part in the development of the doctor into a sensitive, humane practitioner.

Professor Doherty, Dean of the Faculty of Medi- cine at the University of Queensland, discusses the evolution of a curriculum within a traditional medi- cal school, while Professor Rufus Clarke, Newcastle, New South Wales, responds with a brief exposition of

53 Abstract

the planning and progress of the Newcastle curricu- lum, as well as outlining the organizational strategies which have been employed to support the educa- tional programme. Maxine Whittaker, President of the Australian Medical Students’ Association, then presents the students’ plan for the future of medical education. She sums up their plan with the single word-action: action to implement all the ideas and plans which educators have had for years but which have yet to be adopted.

The series of papers is concluded with a perceptive discussion of the role of research in medical educa- tion by John Kerr, Professor of Pathology, University of Queensland. He discusses the role of research in influencing general attitudes to knowledge and edu- cation, and the importance of research in medical education. Research has two major functions. The first is to extend knowledge; the second is to provide insight into the nature of knowledge. He argues that the great increase in the quantity of knowledge in recent times has obscured its essentially conjectural nature. He indicates that this is a major deficiency in

Australian medical schools today. To overcome the problem she proposes that students be made more involved in and aware of the research processes underlying the knowledge which they are currently obsessed with learning.

The 1982 Conference of the Association will be held in Sydney from August 23rd to 25th. The ANZAME Visiting Professor and Guest at the Conference will be Dr Howard Burrows who will be running a pre-conference workshop on training simulated patients. The theme for the Conference is Clinical Problem-Solving. Further details are avail- able from Dr Mick Bennett, Regional Teacher Training Centre, University of New South Wales, P.O. Box 1, Kensington, N.S.W. 2033, Australia.

GRAHAM COLDITZ Editor

ANZAME Bulletin Office, Postgraduate Medical Education,

Royal Brisbane Hospital, Queensland, 4029.