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“This teaching method really helps students learn how to cooperate and work as a team, teaching others,” Dr. Kamei said. “They can also make a direct connection between the basic science materials we asked them to learn and a relevant clinical situation.”

Duke’s medical doctoral program has always been significantly different from the training provided by other medical schools, even in the United States. Duke students cover basic science in one year instead of two. They care for patients a year earlier than their peers at other medical schools and they devote a year to independent scholarship and research. The adoption of the team method is, for now, confined to its Singapore campus, which opened in 2007.

Dr. Kamei says there is some talk about using the method at the U.S. campus, but he says there could be practical difficulties.

“We could do this here in Singapore because we’re starting from scratch, but it’s very difficult to change the way people have been teaching their entire career,” he said. “It’s a completely different way from teaching and lecturing.”

The Singapore government has committed to investing more than $350 million over seven years in Duke-N.U.S. About one-third of this money has gone into building a campus for the school, which will become operational in June. The rest of the money will pay for faculty and staff salaries, start-up research and infrastructure.

The government’s support reflects its desire that Singapore become a leader in medical research and education. In 2000, the government started a program known as the biomedical sciences initiative, investing 3 billion Singapore dollars, or $2 billion, with a goal of making biomedical sciences a main part of the Singapore economy. Duke-NUS faculty and students are expected to work closely with physicians and biomedical scientists in the recently built biomedical science research and development center, known as Biopolis, which has attracted internationally reputed scientists.

Duke’s medical school curriculum, which allows students to devote a year to independent scholarship and research in areas of basic and clinical sciences, was especially appealing, Dr. Kamei said.

“This model of creating a medical school to train medical scientists is an old one, but there aren’t many schools doing it,” he said. “Many schools are now finding that a very small number of their students are going into research or academia and they’re trying to improve that by allowing research during their school year.”