Flourishing as an Aim of Medical Education: Are We Hitting the Target?

In this commentary, we use Reiss and White's contention of educational aims as a lens to examine the aims of medical education and determine whether the flourishing of medical students is among them. We identify an absence of flourishing and observe descriptions of medical students as finished products of training with an emphasis on professional virtues such as altruism. This emphasis is a compensatory response to professional and cultural shifts during the twentieth century. Anchored by this historical context, we draw on the work of Fielding and Moss to offer a path forward for redefining the aims of medical education.