Document Detail


Outside looking in: Observations on medical education since the Flexner Report.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  21155865     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
CONTEXT: This article focuses on the current state of medical education as it relates to the reforms introduced in the wake of the Flexner Report of 1910. The usefulness of outsiders in both understanding and analysing any specialised endeavour, and, specifically, medical education, is carefully considered. No voices call more loudly for change in medical education today than those emanating from within the arena itself. Interestingly, however, the monumental reforms of the Flexner Report were impelled largely from outside the specific discipline of medical education.
OBSERVATIONS: Internal tensions exist between the natural and social sciences. These tensions present formidable obstacles to the balance between advances in biomedical knowledge and the humane and socially acceptable application of that knowledge. Medical education's responses to society's pressures for accessibility and humaneness occupy the next discussion point, named here as 're-democratisation' and 're-humanisation'. A final observation questions whether the current proliferation of literature about reforms in medical education can lead to real change, or whether it constitutes a self-referential agitation that, in the aggregate, holds little promise.
CONCLUSIONS: It is suggested that not only are outsiders useful, but they may perhaps represent the only channel through which medical education can align its current practice with both its internal ideals and the demands of the public, members of which live and die by its efforts.
Authors:
Warren D Anderson
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Medical education     Volume:  45     ISSN:  1365-2923     ISO Abbreviation:  Med Educ     Publication Date:  2011 Jan 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-12-15     Completed Date:  2011-03-15     Revised Date:  2012-03-16    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7605655     Medline TA:  Med Educ     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  29-35     Citation Subset:  IM    
Copyright Information:
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2010.
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Languages and Anthropology, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Missouri 63701, USA. wdanderson@semo.edu
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Education, Medical / methods*,  trends
Humans
Models, Educational
Schools, Medical / trends
Teaching / methods*
Comments/Corrections
Comment In:
Med Educ. 2012 Mar;46(3):238-9   [PMID:  22324521 ]
Med Educ. 2011 Jan;45(1):6-10   [PMID:  21192328 ]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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