Dr. Albert Kuperman

Associate Dean for Educational Affairs
Room: 209 Belfer
Telephone: (718) 430-3371
e-mail: kuperman@aecom.yu.edu

Dr. Kuperman is the main coordinator of the education program here at AECOM. He is in charge of funding all academically-related activities such as the overseas exchange program, student research projects, trips to scientific meetings and student organization conventions, and academically-related extracurricular activities.

Dr. Kuperman is currently interested in (1) constructing a more integrated curriculum in the basic biomedical, behavioral and population sciences and (2) designing instructional strategies that enable students to apply this basic knowledge to the solution of clinical problems during an early phase of their medical education.

Dr. Kuperman believes that with the introduction of more student-centered and self-directed strategies such as case-based conferences, students would be more motivated to learn the scientific basis of clinical medicine, learn how to retrieve information on their own, be introduced to the elements of clinical reasoning even before the start of their formal clinical education, learn how to work cooperatively with each other, and be able to retain important information much longer than just until after the end of an exam. Lectures, he believes, if done in the right way, can still be important for motivating students to learn about a particular subject, and they can also provide a structural framework for tackling a new area of knowledge; but they should not be the only or even the primary way that students acquire new information. Dr. Kuperman would like to see at least an additional 30% reduction in lecture time, most of it to be replaced by case based conferences and other alternatives to lecture and syllabus. Computer based strategies for learning, communicating and information retrieving should, he thinks, play increasingly important roles in this transformation of medical education as we cross the threshold into the next century.

Dr. Kuperman's comments
on the Preclinical Curriculum at Einstein

In addition, Dr. Kuperman believes that the basic science courses should be taught in a more integrated way, enabling students to better understand and appreciate the interrelationships between different biomedical science disciplines, including those of the behavioral and population sciences. In this way, students will be in a better position to make appropriate connections and elaborations as they go about acquiring new information in a multitude of different subject areas, and this in turn will help students to apply important basic knowledge to the solution of clinical problems.

Beside overseeing matters concerning medical education, Dr. Kuperman's area of expertise is Pharmacology; you will therefore have an opportunity to see him during your second year when learning the pharmacology of the autonomic nervous system.

Dr. Kuperman is always accessible and willing to talk to students. Make an appointment with his secretary, Ms. Aida Gonzalez.