Changing Orientations of Medical Students to Patients' Care: Biomedical versus Biopsychosocial Models

Abstract

The instructional effectiveness of a new biopsychosocial medicine curriculum model was evaluated using criterion-based measures of medical students' patient-history taking. Students ( n = 63) who received the new biopsychosocial curriculum were significantly more skilled in identifying, documenting and translating patients' psychosocial data and predisposing risk, factors than students ( n = 56) receiving the prior biomedical, disease-oriented curriculum. Implications for medical education and practice are also discussed.