Education--the concern of the profession? Undergraduate medical education.

In this brief review not all aspects could be covered. The main requirements for improvement are: Reorganise the Medical Council - expand the role of its educational committee and establish a curriculum advisory body. Begin a continuous evaluation process of medical education. Colleges and medical associations begin debating their role, involving lay organisations in the process. Curriculum committees and medical schools look at four areas of criticism (begin planning introduction of early clinical contact, problem solving, critical approach, self learning) and contemplate reduction in length of course. The direction of medical education following Flexner was the centres of medical excellence, these became the teaching hospitals and they have become the trap leading to a distorted view of medicine. That they have produced many advances is not disputed. That they will continue to do so is to be expected, although they are now retarding progress in the important and neglected areas that hold the most potential for benefit--prevention and primary care. The new direction of excellence must not be solely into institutions, but must now be into the minds of all the individual members of the profession. The institutions will change, as society does, along with increasing knowledge, but if possession of the habits of continual critical inquiry is equally represented in all members of the profession, then they will adapt more quickly and appropriately to the requirements in the future.