What did we learn about early clinical experience?

This article explores the lessons learned by ten demonstration schools regarding the early clinical experience (ECE) component of the Interdisciplinary Generalist Curriculum (IGC) Project. Students in ECE at these schools participated in longitudinal, one-to-one or two-on-one preceptorships with primary care physician preceptors in outpatient settings. Development of an ECE was a key component of curricular change at each of the IGC Project schools. Shattering the traditional barrier between preclinical and clinical years of the 2 + 2 medical curriculum model helped create a leading edge for innovation at each of the schools. In this article, the authors incorporated evaluation information from several sources, including the external evaluation reports of the IGC Project, final annual reports from demonstration schools, and curriculum evaluations from the coauthors' schools (the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine).