ABSTRACT
In the past few years several countries – Australia,100 Canada101 and the United States102-106 – have embarked on reviews of their medical education systems. In the United Kingdom, the General Medical Council has issued its Education Strategy 2011-2013,107 and, more recently, The State of Medical Education and Practice,108 which will become an annual report. While this latter document noted examples of good practice, it also expressed concerns over inconsistencies and variability in healthcare across Britain, insisting that ‘[m]edical education and training need to be more responsive to changes in healthcare needs, the organisation and delivery of care, and the shifting expectations of patients’. All reports agree that medical education requires vast improvements in order to sustain the changing needs of twenty-fi rst-century society. More specifi cally, shared curriculum outcomes or common threads include:
● shifting toward competency and outcomes-based education and training models and ensuring greater clarity and consistency of learning outcomes and standards to be met
● individualising the learning experience through more fl exible learning (e.g. by allowing ‘doctors to move between specialties’107)
● the view that clinical reasoning (‘habits of inquiry’103) is best developed by integrating ‘fundamental scientifi c principles, both human and biological sciences in relevant and immediate clinical contexts’
● the recognition that collaborative or inter/trans-professional teamworking101,102 and a commitment to ‘excellence and continuous improvement’100-106 are at the heart of safe and effective patient care
● that considerable attention needs to be given to working in community settings; formative assessment and feedback;100 preventive medicine and whole-person integrated curricula, public and global health, professional identity formation and clinical leadership.
