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Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Department of Biology University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5 E-mail: tmoon{at}science.uottawa.ca

To the Editor:

Thanks for writing your recent article (Restoring physiology to the undergraduate biology curriculum: a call for action. Adv Physiol Educ 27: 91–96, 2003) discussing the issue of physiology in undergraduate curricula. I would be interested to see how general is the abandonment of physiology. At my University (University of Ottawa), this is not happening in the Department of Biology, as one of our core theme areas remains physiology (both animal and plant). I completely agree with you that physiology has become silent over the past decade, and this began as medical school faculties removed the name Physiology from their basic science departments in favor of names like Cellular and Molecular Medicine (as in our medical school). The recent publication of a survey by The Scientist [vol. 18 (1), p. 43, January 19, 2004] demonstrates how major this shift has been; between 1993 and 2002, the number of doctorates awarded in the US in the area of human/animal physiology has fallen by 24%. This is the largest fall within the 11 categories of biological sciences surveyed and does not bode well for the future of physiology.

I have been arguing for some time that even biology as a discipline is disappearing; is this simply old terminology and students are attracted to new names? Biochemistry, which to my mind is simply a subsection of biology (is it not simply biological chemistry?), pharmacology, and microbiology are also experiencing reductions according to the Scientist survey. Again, our University amalgamated a number of these departments together, although courses remain with the "old" names. And molecular biology: what is this, besides technology and technology that does not work very well for organisms other than mammals?! Biology is confronted by this at every turn, especially when one considers that the Institute for Scientific Information lists only 82 journals under the keyword biology out of their 3,000 journals, most of which in reality are biological in content.

How does one get physiology and biology back in vogue? I’m not certain, except to argue at every turn that the basic disciplines are the ones that need supporting so that students can be trained to solve problems in the more restrictive subsections of these disciplines. I have no real solutions except to bring together like-minded people and have them push the idea of discipline-based education rather than subdiscipline. The unfortunate result of an absence of highly trained physiologists will be molecular biologists without a guidebook to understanding organismic genomes and integrative biology.

Thanks again for your article.

This Article Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Moon, T. W. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Moon, T. W.