Academic Medicine

Author(s):  
Samuel Hellman

The proper education of a doctor must not be restricted to the sciences but rather must include study of the humanities and the social sciences. This is best achieved by having an interactive and physically integrally located medical school. Not only must medicine be based on modern biology, a biology education is also essential for all college undergraduates. One cannot consider genetic engineering if one does not understand what a gene is and how it is controlled. Unique to medical education are the places of medical practice. Besides providing a site of learning, the teaching hospital must provide excellent patient care and be responsive to the surrounding community. The university must embrace these other goals. Society should provide high quality health care for all. This cannot be achieved if only the lowest cost is the goal. While resources are limited, economic efficiency cannot be the only parameter.

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (01) ◽  
pp. 204-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Sydnor ◽  
Nicole Pankiewicz

ABSTRACT This article describes the creation and implementation of a new online assessment program (“PACKS”) for the department of politics at the University of Virginia. It discusses the benefits of online assessments, including the ease of administration, minimal faculty involvement, ability to link assessment data to existing student data (e.g., GPA and courses completed), and ability to track student progress over time. The assessment can be easily adapted for use by other departments in the social sciences and by other colleges and universities. The authors discuss the drawbacks to this type of assessment, including the challenge of obtaining the highest number of respondents. They recommend using a strong incentive to ensure full participation, such as an advising hold that prevents students from registering until they complete the assessment. The authors contend that implementing survey-based assessment tools is an ideal way for departments to meet their accrediting institutions’ assessment requirements.


Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Cooperberg ◽  
John D. Birkmeyer ◽  
Mark S. Litwin

Author(s):  
Phil Mullins

This essay examines the thirty-year personal and intellectual friendship of Edward Shils and Michael Polanyi. Shils identifies Polanyi as one of his three important mentors; he is aware of and often involved in many Polanyi projects after the mid-forties and absorbs elements of Polanyi’s developing post-critical philosophical perspective. Shils helped Polanyi better understand the social sciences and he was a trusted friend whose scholarly writing apparently inspired Polanyi; Shils was also a capable younger figure on whom Polanyi often relied to organize endeavours such as Polanyi’s long term affiliation with the University of Chicago.


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