The medical school in an academic health center recently implemented a problem-based curriculum, dramatically reducing the number of lectures given and substituting small-group learning that focuses on actual patient cases.

Both clinical and basic science faculty are feeling stretched in their new roles. In the past, dental students took the basic course in microanatomy with medical students. The core lectures are still given, but at different times that do not match with the dental-curriculum schedule. The anatomists insist that they don’t have time to teach another course specifically for dental students. The dean has informed the chair of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology that some educational revenues will be redirected to the dental school if the faculty do not meet this need.

How should the dean handle this conflict with the chair of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology?