Kaplan Medical
Celebrates Quality Medical Education

Underscores Importance of Teaching as a Primary Consideration Among Medical Academics

New York (July 5, 2000) – Medical schools have a dilemma. With half of their budgets coming from clinical revenue, the pressure on the faculty to bring in clinical dollars has led to less time to focus on teaching. In a recent JAMA editorial (Vol 283, No. 18), Griner and Danoff noted that, "for their part, medical schools have not placed a high enough value on teaching, often failing to recognize or reward faculty for their contributions." It is clear that inadequate recognition of teaching efforts still presents a major challenge to the training of tomorrow’s physicians.

Kaplan Medical, the medical preparation unit of Kaplan, Inc., celebrates the value of superior teachers in providing quality education and thus retains medical school faculty who will provide the best educational experience for its students. Based on the conviction that teaching should be a primary consideration among medical academics, Kaplan organized an extensive faculty to provide live lecture courses at Kaplan centers across the country, including Continuing Medical Education courses for practicing physicians and United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) courses for US medical students and international medical graduates.

The high standards to which Kaplan Medical holds its faculty is evidenced by recent awards given to two outstanding faculty members.

Dr. Don Dunn (Microbiology and Immunology) received the Stanton L. Young Master Teacher Award, one of the most prestigious in the nation for medical teaching excellence.

Dr. Jim White (Anatomy) received the Excellence in Teaching Award given to a basic science and a clinical science professor each year by the Trustees of the Foundation of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. This is the third time he received this award and is the thirteenth teaching award of his career.

"We are proud to recognize the accomplishments of our faculty, who consider teaching a core responsibility in academic medicine, rather than secondary to research," said Rochelle Rothstein, MD, vice president of Kaplan Medical. "Our faculty is among the best in the nation, culled from medical schools across the country with the mission to provide the highest quality medical preparation courses to our students."

"I feel very strongly that medical school faculty be outstanding teachers as well as excellent researchers," said Dr. Dunn. "I was thrilled to win the Stanton L. Young award, which rewards faculty for just that, and to be a part of Kaplan Medical, which shares my view and allows me to have such a positive impact on medical students throughout the country."

"The makeup of the Kaplan Medical review courses enables the faculty to help more medical students understand the ‘big picture’," said Dr. White. "Kaplan’s highly effective curriculum emphasizes important clinical aspects of a wide variety of subjects. The best feedback we get is from a student who tells us ‘I finally understand that concept’."

Kaplan Medical is the largest provider of preparation services for the USMLE and the Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) in the world, also providing board review and Continuing Medical Education (CME) for practicing physicians, and test preparation for pre-medical Dental and Nursing students. Kaplan Medical’s beta Web site, kaplanmedical.com will fully launch this summer, aiming to become the leading online destination for test preparation and educational services for health sciences students and professionals.

Kaplan Medical (www.kaplanmedical.com) is a unit of Kaplan's Test Preparations and Admissions unit (www.kaptest.com), which offers preparation for 30 standardized tests, including entrance exams for secondary school, college, and graduate school as well as English language and professional licensing exams. Kaplan (www.kaplan.com) is a premier provider of educational and career services to individuals, schools and businesses. Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO).

Press Contact: pubrel@kaplan.com, (212) 492-5965