ABSTRACT
The objective of this book has been to examine in historical perspective, the current state of medical education, research, and practice and to encourage the medical establishment to focus more sharply on the needs of the patient as opposed to a general conception of “health care.” Scanning the past millenium reveals cycles of major changes in how to educate physicians. For example, the practice of teaching students at the bedside has either had a high priority or, from time to time, has been ignored. Giovanni Battista Da Monte (1498–1551) introduced bedside teaching of students at the hospital of San Francisco in Padua. After his death the practice died out in Italy, was revived in Leiden, in the Netherlands, enjoyed popularity in Edinburgh, Paris, and then successively in Canada, The United States, and England under William Osler (Altschule, 1989). Today bedside teaching is suffering neglect. 1 The philosophical approach to medical education has vacillated widely since Hippocrates, during the golden age of Greece, wrote: “Medicine is the most distinguished of all arts” (Hippocrates, Law Bk. I). He also extolled the importance of science as the road to knowledge (Hippocrates, Bk. IV). His work had been preceded by the natural history studies of Aristotle in the fourth century b.c.
