An Indonesian medical educator says the day of the know-it-all professor is rapidly ending around the world.
Dr. Djamaan Biran, professor of medicine in the University of Indonesia School of Medicine at Djakarta, made this observation before the faculty council of the Louisiana State University Medical School.
"I was educated in a Dutch-operated medical school and it was understood by all that the teacher was assumed to know all that was to be known on any subject being taught," he said.
Having toured medical schools in this country, England and Germany, Dr. Biran said he feels this concept of student-teacher relationship is disappearing, and that medicine is better off as a result.
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE
Dr. Biran has been in the U.S. two months and will remain approximately three more. He visited the medical schools of LSU
and Tulane University and hospital facilities of the greater New Orleans area.
He said that the ever-increasing pool of knowledge, particularly in medicine, necessitates a two-way exchange of information be- ^ tween student and teacher. He added that challenges of inquiry are to be expected and encouraged by teachers.
Dr. Biran said Indonesia has 11 medical schools, some of which are under-staffed and are being up-graded through cooperation with several U.S. medical schools. VISITS MEDIC SCHOOLS
He was presented to the LSU faculty council by Dr. Albert
Sidney Harris, chairman of the aepartriient of physiology, .who met Dr. Biran while on an 18-month tour of duty at the University of Indonesia School of Medicine several years ago.
At that time, Dr. Harris was helping rehabilitate the medical school in the aftermath of World War II and the pull-out of the Duteh following Indonesian independence.
Dr. Biran has already visited the medical schools of Stanford
University, the University of alifornia, UCLA, the University of Southern California and the University of Oregon. He will tour similar facilities in Memphis, Nashville, Washingon, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.
