ABSTRACT
The background for the development of the University of Arizona's innovative Curriculum on Medical and Other Ignorance (CMI) is described along with the nature of the philosophical and pedagogical paradigm shift from epistemology and knowledge to n-epistemology and ignorance. The relation of the ignorance explosion to the information explosion and links to chaos and failure theory are examined. The curriculum encourages the student-learner to explore the multifaceted domains of ignorance in medicine, sciences, and other fields, provides tools for questioning, and a variety of educational formats including research experiences, seminars, rounds, and reports. Evaluation feedback and program impact are summarized.
The greatest single achievement of science in this most scientific productive of centuries is the discovery that we are profoundly ignorant. We know very little about nature and we understand even less. I wish there were some formal courses in medical school on medical ignorance, textbooks as well although they would have to be very heavy volumes.
—Lewis Thomas (physician-essayist, 1982, p. xliii)