Harry S. Jonas

The Physician as an Educated Person

To the Editor.— The COMMENTARY section ofThe Journalon the selection of students for careers in medicine provides interesting reading for those interested in medical education in the United States. Dr Rhoads referred to schools that have tried integrating the premedical and medical years, thus offering an alternate approach to preparing physicians for the future. The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, now in its second decade, is among the pioneers in this approach, selecting students directly from high school into a combined program that offers both the baccalaureate and medical degrees. The curriculum fully integrates the teaching of liberal arts/humanities, basic sciences, and clinical medicine, with students spending 75% of their time in the first third of the program on the liberal arts campus and 25% of their time in a teaching hospital/ clinical setting. During the last two thirds of the program, this time allocation is