a. The burden of factual information imposed on students in undergraduate medical curricula should be substantially reduced.

b. Learning through curiosity, the exploration of knowledge, and the critical evaluation of evidence should be promoted and should ensure a capacity for self-education. The undergraduate course should be seen as the first stage in the continuum of medical education that extends throughout professional life.

c. Attitudes of mind and of behaviour that befit a doctor should be inculcated, and should imbue the new graduate with attributes appropriate to his/her future responsibilities to patients, colleagues and society in general.

e. A ‘core curriculum’ should be defined, encompassing the essential knowledge and skills and the appropriate attitudes to be acquired at the time of graduation.

f. The ‘core curriculum’ should be augmented by a series of special study modules’ which allow students to study in depth areas of particular interest to them, which provide them with insights into scientific method and the discipline of research, and which engender an approach to medicine that is questioning and self-critical.

g. The ‘core curriculum’ should be system-based, its component parts being the combined responsibility of basic scientists and clinicians integrating their contributions to a common purpose, thus eliminating the rigid pre-clinical/clinical divide and the exclusive departmentally based course.

h. There should be emphasis throughout the course on communication skills and the other essentials of basic clinical method.

i. The theme of public health medicine should figure prominently in the curriculum, encompassing health promotion and illness prevention, assessment and targeting of population needs, and awareness of environmental and social factors in disease.

j. Clinical teaching should adapt to changing patterns in health care and should provide experience of primary care and of community medical services as well as of hospital-based services.

k. Learning systems should be informed by modern educational theory and should draw on the wide range of technological resources available. Medical schools should be prepared to share these resources to their mutual advantage.

I. Systems of assessment should be adapted to the new style curriculum, should encourage appropriate learning skills and should reduce emphasis on the uncritical acquisition of facts.

m. The design, implementation and continuing review of curricula demand the establishment of effective supervisory structures, with interdisciplinary membership and adequate representation of junior staff and students.