100 years after the Flexner report

Medical education for transformative times

100 years after the Flexner report on medical education, it's time to think about how to advance physician training for a new generation of students.

Editorial. Posted Oct. 18, 2010.

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In 1910, educator Abraham Flexner presented an evaluation of American and Canadian medical schools that is widely credited for laying the groundwork for modern medical education. One hundred years later, the question is being asked: Has medical education evolved enough under the Flexner model to prepare the future generations of physicians?

To begin to answer that question, the American Medical Association and the Assn. of American Medical Colleges convened an event in September called "New Horizons in Medical Education: A Second Century of Achievement." The conference was concurrent with a special supplement to the September issue of Academic Medicine, the AAMC's journal, devoted to the past and future of medical education. Among meeting topics were standards for a medical curriculum, and how it should be taught, the same basis of the Flexner report.

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Certainly, the 100-year anniversary of a report whose impact on medical education continues to resonate provides a marker for introspection. New Horizons also reflects a sense that we are living in times much like Flexner's, in which rapid scientific and technological change necessitates a closer look at how physicians are made./.../