ABSTRACT
It is generally agreed that one of the primary aims of MDV education is to lay the foundations of lifelong learning (RCVS, 1991; GMC, 1993; GDC, 1997). Dewey enunciated this view in his writing on education: ‘the most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning’ (Dewey, 1997:48). The distinguished medical educator, Osler, observed at the beginning of the last century that: ‘The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation’(Osler, 1914, cited by Jennett, 1993:18).
