ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the ideas, using strands of the new medical curriculum at the University of East Anglia (UEA) as illustrations. It compares the scope of the genetics and consultation skills themes and discusses how nationally agreed standards can ensure the quality of curricula. The chapter describes strategies to integrate these and other disciplines to produce that Holy Grail, the holistic curriculum. The original and revised versions of Tomorrow's Doctors outline broad outcomes that today's undergraduate medical curriculum should achieve. In the fields of pharmacology and genetics there have been national initiatives to define the core undergraduate curriculum with published lists of concepts, learning outcomes and competences to prepare the foundation doctor. Defining a core curriculum for a given theme is a challenge; and balancing the contributions from the clinical, basic and social sciences requires flexibility and innovation. Medical education has changed, embracing both the challenge of ever-expanding scientific fields and the teaching of social and behavioural science.
