Medical education and training

Introduction It is sometimes easy to think of medical education as an add-on, something that happens by osmosis alongside patient care. In truth, medical education and training are key to the safe and effective delivery of both current and future patient care. As Sir John Temple wrote in his 2010 review of the impact of the European Working Time Directive on the quality of training: ‘Training is patient safety for the next 30 years.’1 And as the Goodenough report stated many decades before that, in 1944: ‘Properly planned and carefully conducted medical education is the foundation of a comprehensive health service.’2