The Adequacy of Education for General Practice: A Medical Educator's Viewpoint

The effect on medical education of the doubling of medical knowledge every 10 years is discussed. A brilliant student who might successfully master all the present facts and theories by graduation would be seriously out of date 10 years later, and hopelessly so by retirement age unless he continued his education while in practice. Lengthening the undergraduate course is not considered an effective solution, nor is increasing the general practice internship to two years. Emphasis should be placed on self-education by the medical student, on the inculcation of habits of study and motivation to encourage lifelong learning, and on the provision of more adequate programs of continuing education for the practising doctor. Teachers in medical schools require a better understanding of and interest in the learning processes of their students rather than concentrating on the exposition of their own knowledge.