Abraham Flexner--a crusader against medical maleducation.

The Flexner Report, one of the most cited publications in medical education, describes the site-visits to 163 medical schools in 40 American states, in terms of admission requirements, number of students, number of faculty, etcetera. The Flexner Reports (there are three!) are still worth reading. For instance, Flexner holds a plea for problem orientation. "The student is to collect and to evaluate facts. The facts are locked up in the patient. To the patient, therefore, he must go." The impossibility of obtaining encyclopaedic knowledge requires medical students to adopt a scientific attitude; this calls for dedicated teachers, not necessarily from the research establishment. Flexner recommended the closing down of 124 medical schools, not only because of the deplorable quality, but also because of the disproportionate geographical distribution, and (most of all) because of the enormous overproduction of medical doctors. Flexner's significance as a medical educator is illustrated by a discussion of the role of the teacher and the nature of medical education. Learning, not teaching, is what it is all about. It is argued that cancer education can learn from Flexner's insights.