The discussion was organized to first identify the major problems and impediments to successful teaching, and then an open discussion of each of the problems to see how colleagues at other institutions were dealing with similar problems.

The variation in student preparation before entering the program was a significant problem in most institutions.  All programs have requirements for prior courses in biology, mathematics and chemistry, or include those courses as part of the professional degree program.  In spite of this, most faculty experienced occasions where the inadequate preparation of some of their students delayed the progression of the class through the material.  While acknowledging that this is likely to remain a problem, the faculty felt that a better communication with the admissions committees might help prevent some of the more significant student preparation gaps.

A second problem was identification of the expected outcomes of the physiology component of the medical curriculum.  This is a particular problem, as physiology is foundation course for many other basic sciences.  Countries that have a national licensing examination are able to identify essential physiology as the material tested on that examination.  The group also felt that it was important to have a set of course objectives established for medical physiology, and to have those objectives reviewed by other basic science and clinical educators to both validate and refine.

A third problem discussed in detail was the lack of resources, both material and curricular time, allocated to the physiology component of the curriculum.  The time allotment is a continuing concern, and will be determined by the relative priorities of each institution.  Scarcity of materials is a problem that can be helped by sharing of teaching resources among faculty.  The American Physiological Society has launched an archive of teaching resources, a project that may help address this problem.

The final issue for discussion related to whether discipline-based sessions were a useful component of the IAMSE meeting.  The participants strongly supported the inclusion of discipline-based activities as a component of the IAMSE meeting.  This was both because of the self-identification of the teachers as members of the discipline, and also because of the new resources being created by the discipline-based professional societies, such as the American Physiological Society, to support the teaching activities of their members.