Interdisciplinary integration in health sciences curricula

Increasing emphasis is being placed upon the role of the M.D. as the leader of a team of health professionals to whom he delegates many hitherto jealously guarded responsibilities. But most M.D.s are ill prepared for their new role. One effective way of training for this 'new look' in M.D.s is through an integrated Health Sciences approach with student doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and dentists involved in closely integrated training programs. One ongoing program is discussed. There are some 15 universities in the United States that contain the four major health professions schools (denistry, medicine, pharmacy, and nursing), and which have organized them under some sort of common academic management. Most of these institutions are moving toward some degree of integration of health professions education. Creighton University, in Omaha, Neb., is one of these universities. This presentation describes Creighton's curriculum project.