Med School Wants Ed School's Advice

The Medical School next week will begin looking into a long-standing student gripe: a lot of Med School teachers can't teach very well.

Dean Robert H. Ebert will meet informally with Theodore R. Sizer, dean of the School of Education, and a small number of Ed School professors to discuss the problem.

As one Med School administrator explains the meeting -- and other conferences which may follow -- the idea is to ask Ed School experts "to come over here and tell us what we're doing well, what we're doing badly. We want," according to Joseph W. Gardella, associate dean for Student Affairs, "to swap ideas and see just what the hell we can do."

The students' chief beef has been that lectures in the first two years of Med School are long, fact-packed, and dull. Since the courses are all prescribed, there are more than 125 students in each, and some students complain there is little opportunity for individual attention from professors.

Much of the criticism would no doubt be silenced if the faculty votes through the curriculum changes recommended earlier this year by a special subcommittee.

In addition to asking a cut in the workload to give students more time to read on their own, the subcommittee's report suggests setting up a large number of seminar-like electives in which each professor could "develop and display his full talents as a teacher and scholar."

A number of students, however, are clearly skeptical about whether, in some cases at least, the talent for teaching amounts to much.

After the subcommittee's chairman, Dr. Alexander Leaf, Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine told 200 students at a recent meeting that all Med professors appreciate the chance to teach, a student drew loud applause when he shot back, "Part of the problem here is that they get it."

"It's no secret that there's a lot of teaching that isn't up to the quality that we would like," Leaf said in a recent interview. "But no one has ever told anyone anything except that he's supposed to know a lot about his subject."

Leaf, who will join Ebert in meeting with representatives of the Ed School, next week, said he hoped the education experts could suggest what else teachers could be told, and how. "It's one thing to be enthusiastic and excited and know your subject -- and that's the first requirement," said Leaf, "but are there some formal techniques they can learn to improve their teaching?"

"There's no point in waiting for a change in the curriculum to find out about that," he said.