Medical education in the United States of America (USA), and worldwide, is increasingly
concentrating on the process and outcome of the educational experience. The first efforts to substantially
improve medical education in the USA resulted in the Flexner Report in the early 1900s. The
release of this report led to significant advancements in the quality of curriculum content. However, in
the past few decades there has been increasing realization that delivery of content will not, by itself,
assure the development of excellent physicians. As a result, there has been an increasing emphasis
on the process, and, most recently, the outcome, of medical education. Process movements have
examined the context and methods for teaching and learning. The problem-based learning movement
is perhaps the most widely-known example of process trends. The latest trends in USA medical education
focus on the outcomes of the learning process. At the forefront of this movement is the American
Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which accredits all USA post-graduate
training programs. Recently, the ACGME has defined a set of six core clinical competencies that all
graduates must demonstrate. A second emerging trend is inter-professional education. Increasingly,
healthcare is provided by inter-professional healthcare team, and students must be competent to function
effectively in this setting. Many academic health centers are developing joint curricula to address
this need. Medical education has evolved from a primary focus on content to an emphasis on process of
teaching and learning, and will increasingly concentrate on educational outcomes. |