Learning Alone or Learning Together: Is It Time to Reevaluate Teacher and Learner Responsibilities?

Abstract

Medical schools across the United States and Canada constantly consider how to improve their curricula and their pedagogical strategies. The authors found it informative to compare how students in 2 professional schools, medicine and business, are taught. The authors believe that creating the best future physicians requires students and faculty to be physically together to learn essential skills. Increasing student interactions with peers and faculty enhances learning, and the classroom is a natural place for these interactions to take place. Requiring medical students to attend teaching sessions in the preclinical curriculum should help foster their development of core competencies, including critical decision making, clinical reasoning, and patient-centered care.