A SUGGESTED PLAN for CLOSER COOPERATION between TEACHERS of and BIOCHEMISTRY* SIDNEY S. NEGUS Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
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O O P E ~ T I O Nbetween teachers of premedical and predental chemistry in liberal arts colleges and teachers of biochemistry in medical and dental schools is surprisingly lacking. For the most part teachers of preprofessional students go their own way, while teachers of biochemistry in the medical and dental schools take little interest in what is being taught in chemistry to students who eventually will be in their classes. Preprofessional courses in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and analytical chemistry vary so greatly in colleges of liberal arts that semesterhour credits submitted for entrance to a medical or dental school may mean a great deal in one case and very little in another. The teacher of biochemistry usually has in his class students poorly prepared in chemistry and others exceptionally well prepared. To bridge the gap, much material has to be given which should be non-essential. In the particular plan to be described, the results of ten years of experience are available. To start with, in the spring of the year, a preprofessional visiting day is arranged so that students contemplating the study of medicine and dentistry may see for themselves just what such studies entail. A tour of the schools is made, and preprofessional students have opportunities to talk with faculty members and students in the two schools. Premedical and predental advisers are urged to take advantage of the visiting day so that they will be better able to advise their students what the studies of medicine and dentistry comprise. The jump from study requirements in a liberal arts college to those in a medical or dental school is a big one, and unless a student is prepared for it he may get lost in the shuffle during the f i s t few months of his professional studies. I t has been found that after acquainting themselves definitely with the heavy requirements of a health service school stndents often give up their plans for entrance, while others may decide to go into one of the fields. Visiting day has worked out so well in the plan that we would not think of giving it up.
Each year before the course in biochemistry begins, heads of chemistry departments in colleges where the freshmen students prepared in the subject receive a letter giving the names of their former students in the class and are told that from time to time during the semester descriptive reports of their students' work will be sent to them. Premedical and predental grades are obtained from the dean and tabulated, but various aptitudes of students are usually not well described to deans of medical and dental schools. The preprofessional teachers are asked to cooperate in this respect by sending on their estimates of each student in matters other than those covered by grades. When the biochemistry course begins, each instructor in the course is acquainted with the background of every student, not only from a chemistry grade standpoint, but rather generally. Prejudice, obviously, has to be kept out of the picture carefully. As the course proceeds, the premedical chemistry teachers are informed concerning their students' work, the grades being incidental. At the close of the course, final grades are sent and are recorded on the cards of the respective colleges held by the professor of hiochemistry. After the plan has been under way for a number of years, the chemistry representative on the admissions committee knows from these cards what colleges prepare students well in premedical and predental chemistry and those which do not. Since the greatest number of hours in any premedical, and to a large degree now, predental course is required in chemistry, the f a d s learned from the plan help greatly in selecting stndents. Each matriculating freshman in the course in biochemistry, knowing of the plan as carried out, feels a responsibility to his preprofessional college and chemistry teacher, and perhaps oftentimes does better than he would otherwise. Each chemistry department head in the colleges concerned is sent an outline of the biochemistry course. With the aid of the outline, preprofessional chemistry teachers feel that they know more in detail what to stress with their premedical and predental students, and consequently prepare them better. This does * Presented before the Division of Chemical Education at the not mean that any attempt is made to give specialized Ninety-@st Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Kansas courses to preprofessional students but simply to make City, Missouri, April 15. 1936. 1.28
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the fundamental ones more practical. From time to time, members of the chemistry department in the medical and dental schools visit the
chemistry departments of preprofessional colleges supplying students. Knowledge of mutual problems aids greatly in better all-round instruction.
