Summer Reading at Work!

Its neat to be able to read at my job. My grandpa gave me a book about health care, and there was a chapter in it about the current and the future education of medical students! Its called "The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care".

"There are 129 U.S. medical schools with an average of 2 to 3 applicants for each of the 15,000 to 16,000 available seats. Counting college, tomorrow's doctors will have spent 10 to 18 of the most productive years of their lives just training for their careers."

1) In 1910, there was extensive research done by Abraham Flexner, and the conclusion was that there were too many doctors being trained in American medical schools, and that a more expensive medical education was to be needed if people were to "reap the full benefit of recent progress in medicine". Because of this man, the medical school curriculum was restructured, and made uniform over all schools, that is, two years of science training followed by two years of clinical training.

2) 2/3 of schools today are not efficient in the training of the first 2 years of medical school. The reason is because much of what is learned does not pertain to the clinical knowledge in the last 2 years. Another major issue is that doctors are trained to work independently of each other by and large, and little training in areas of how to create, administer, or improve the way people work together in the health-care system.

3) Science and clinical should be conducted in parallel. Students would be less prone to forget what they learned. Another issue is that there are not enough primary care doctors, and so the gap is being filled in by foreign medical schools, schools of osteopathic medicine, and nursing schools.

Our medical system is in the process of reform, and its interesting to see how this will affect me as I start medical school this September!

-MD in 14