Clinical biostatistics; XXXIII. On teaching statistics to medical students

For more than 80 years, statisticians have been conducting discussions, symposia, and debates in an effort to answer a series of persistent questions about the teaching of statistics. 1, 2, 4, 10, 13, 16-18, 21-24 Was the subject important enough to be incorporated into general education? If so, at what level of education-secondary school, university, or graduate school? What topics should be included and how should the illustrative examples be chosen? How should the instruction be oriented-mainly toward "theory" or toward "applications"? How should the students be regarded-as potential professional statisticians or as informed users of statistical techniques? What should be the instructor's background-intensive accomplishment in mathematical statIstIcs or experienced familiarity with statistical applications? Some of these questions are not too difficult to answer with respect to the role of statistics in medical education. Everyone seems to agree that medical doctors ought to know about statistics. Practitioners need it as an act of selfdefense, to be able to comprehend a medical literature that has become increasingly statisti-

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