Last issue of JIAMSE - Special Flexner Issue

To all IAMSE members,

I write today to remind you to make sure to take a look at the most recent issue of the Journal of the International Association of Medical Science Educators, JIAMSE, accessible, of course, at www.iamse.org. Normally, the Publications Committee tries to guide you to the journal every month by providing you with a short review of one or two articles in a recent issue. This time, I enthusiastically recommend you read the whole issue. This issue marks ends and beginnings; it is historical in its significance! As you should know by now, it represents the last issue of JIAMSE, which will be replaced by Medical Science Educator, MSE, beginning with the next edition. It seems entirely fitting that the last issue is the “Flexner Issue” and every article commemorates the centennial of the seminal Flexner Report, a centennial which has also now just ended. Many would say that with its end, changes in medical education already begun will accelerate, perhaps spearheaded by the release of what has been called the new Flexner Report, Educating Physicians: A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, as was the Flexner Report, and authored by Molly Cooke, David Irby and Bridget O’Brien.

The JIAMSE “Flexner Issue” was guest edited by Pat Finnerty, Past President of IAMSE, and is dedicated to former JIAMSE editor-in chief Uldis Streips, a Louisville man like Flexner and a great Flexner acolyte; former production editor Marshall Anderson and the Editorial Board of JIAMSE. The articles invited for this issue offer insights from the perspective of the Flexner Report on the teaching of each of the major disciplines considered to be the foundational sciences for the study of medicine. There are also some articles that provide viewpoints about the teaching of the foundational sciences in medical schools outside the United States and Canada. The whole issue is a great read and really summarizes a great deal about the teaching of the sciences basic to medicine historically up to the present time.

Dani L. McBeth, Ph.D.
Chair, Publications Committee