Premed Chemistry

The article explaining the impetus for change in the undergraduate premedical curriculum reflects many of the curriculum changes we initiated last fall at the University of Memphis (C&EN, Nov. 22, 2009, page 35). The rationale for the change in our curriculum has been presented to our students as follows:

The ACS Committee on Professional Training (CPT) is the approval body for our department. The major revisions CPT has made to its approval guidelines provide us with substantially more flexibility than the previous guidelines. Several of our lowest enrollment courses are no longer required, and we have taken this opportunity to combine content from some of these courses into courses that better integrate the subdisciplines of chemistry to provide better and more modern training for our students.

Of particular relevance to your article is the redesign of the foundation in organic chemistry to provide exactly the background students need in one semester to begin their foundation experience in biochemistry. Our discussions with representatives of the professional schools in our region (medical, dental, allied health, pharmacy, and so on) prior to implementing these changes yielded very positive responses. Overall, it was nice to see that the type of changes we have implemented may occur elsewhere in the future.

Abby L. Parrill
Memphis