The education and training of future doctors is undergoing a revolution in which high-tech tools are being used to prepare students to practice a "high-touch" brand of medicine beyond the impatience setting -- in outpatient centers, physician offices, and patient homes across the country.

At the forefront of this trend is the Medical School Beth Israel Deaconess Mount Auburn Hospital for Education and Research, the first medical education and research program of its kind in the country. To celebrate the dedication of their state-of-the-art education laboratory, an open house was held this week.

Key speakers for the event included Michael Rosenblatt, executive director of the new joint program and Harvard faculty dean for academic programs at Beth Israel Deaconess; and Mitchell T. Rabkin, CEO, CareGroup Inc.; and Daniel C. Tosteson, Dean of Harvard Medical School.

Traditionally, the last two years of a medical student's training have been spent performing rounds in a teaching hospital, and going from bed-to-bed examining sick patients. "But medical students need training that reflects the realities of the modern health care system, in which patients are more likely to move from the hospital to outpatient center and to home more quickly than ever before," says Rosenblatt.

The Institute's response is to offer medical students the chance to train with senior physician-advisers in a high-tech clinical education and research outpatient center, dedicated solely to their use. Here they will use state-of-the-art computer education programs and virtual patient scenarios to prepare them for the hands-on care of real patients in various settings. Emphasis will be on treating the patients as whole individuals, with courses that cut across all the major medical and surgical disciplines. For example, students studying cancer might take one course that integrates chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgical oncology, and psychiatry. Previously, each of these disciplines would have been studied separately.

"The Institute's clinical education and research program will prepare students to practice medicine in the 21st century by more closely matching the training of future doctors with the future needs of patients," says Rosenblatt.

The Institute is located in the Carl J. Shapiro Clinical Center, and was designed specifically for the education and training of medical students. It is equipped with more than a dozen computer stations with Internet access, a classroom with computer and audiovisual hookup, and two large exam rooms with two-way mirrors to allow students to be observed during case review of real and virtual computer based patients. It is open 24 hours a day for the use of medical students. The Institute also features a traditional and an online library, faculty lectures, and diagnostic and medical management programs on CD-ROM, study area, kitchen, and lockers.

Another objective of the Institute is to develop new approaches to conducting and supporting research. They plan to emphasize cellular genetic research and involve faculty researchers in translating laboratory discoveries into clinical use.