Medical education and the healthcare system--why does the curriculum need to be reformed?

Abstract

Medical education has been the subject of ongoing debate since the early 1900s. The core of the discussion is about the importance of scientific knowledge on biological understanding at the expense of its social and humanistic characteristics. Unfortunately, reforms to the medical curriculum are still based on a biological vision of the health-illness process. In order to respond to the current needs of society, which is education's main objective, the learning processes of physicians and their instruction must change once again. The priority is the concept of the health-illness process that is primarily social and cultural, into which the biological and psychological aspects are inserted. A new curriculum has been developed that addresses a comprehensive instruction of the biological, psychological, social, and cultural (historical) aspects of medicine, with opportunities for students to acquire leadership, teamwork, and communication skills in order to introduce improvements into the healthcare systems where they work.

Figure 1

Curriculum attributes facing the healthcare system. Medical education undergraduate curriculum at the Rosario University. The curriculum´s key characteristics are depicted including those allowing opportunities for students to acquire leadership, teamwork and communication skills in order to deal and introduce improvements into the healthcare systems where they will work. (Original source) Abbreviations: ILAS: Integrative learning activities by system, SPICES: student-centred/teacher-centred, problem-based/information-gathering, integrated/discipline-based, community-based/hospital-based, elective/uniform and systematic/apprenticeship-based.