Dimensions of clinical medicine: an interclerkship program.

Background: During the 3rd year of medical school, clerkships provide essential clinical experiences. However, other aspects of patient care may be overlooked during this critical phase of medical education. Faced with the challenge of integrating "orphan" topics central to effective and compassionate medical practice, medical schools have begun to develop interclerkships or intersessions.

Developing a peer review process for web-based curricula: minting a new coin of the realm.

The World Wide Web creates new challenges and opportunities for medical educators. Prominent among these are the lack of consistent standards by which to evaluate web-based educational tools. We present the instrument that was used to review web-based innovations in medical education submissions to the 2003 Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) national meeting, and discuss the process used by the SGIM web-based clinical curriculum interest group to develop the instrument.