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A survey was made of the medical schools in the United States to obtain a description of the interview process used in the selection of first-year medical students. The following questions were the basis for the study: What is the role of the interview in the selection of medical students? What is the nature of the interview process? How is the interview administered? An 87 percent response rate was obtained. The results indicated that 99 percent of the responding medical schools use interviews in evaluating students for medical school admission, and the interview ranks second only to the grade-point average in importance among four selection factors. The interview is usually in a one to one setting, with each applicant having two separate interviews. All schools use faculty and staff members in interviewing, and usually at least one admissions committee member interviews each applicant. Usually interviews are conducted on the campus of the school. Implications drawn from the results indicate a need for a quantification of methods to incorporate the interview into the selection process.

Forty southern medical schools were surveyed to evaluate the nature and mechanisms of curricular change during 1980 to 1983. Ninety percent of schools experienced change in some aspect of curriculum. Faculty, curriculum committees, the dean, and external forces were stimuli for change. Internal self-review or self-criticism seemed to be the most important reasons for change. Proposals were considered by curriculum committees and the dean, but veto power often rested with the dean, although departmental chairmen and faculty occasionally had veto power. Types of change were divided equally between content, timing of courses, and the educational process. Half the schools stated that they had evaluated the changes or planned to do so. Thirteen of 38 changes in curriculum were in the direction of curricular innovations of the 1960s and 1970s and 25 were in the opposite direction.

For a long period, students have been taking national board examination review programs offered by commercial firms. The one question to which faculty and students would like the answer is, "Do the national board review programs offered by these commercial firms do any good?" Events at the Medical College of Georgia have provided an opportunity to gather data toward an answer to this question. In 1976, thirty-three medical students at the Medical College of Georgia enrolled in a commercial national board review program. Performance of these students was compared with the predicted performance of these students had they not taken the national board review program. The results suggest that the commercial review program did not notably help these students.