Analysis of European medical schools' teaching programs

To compare the teaching programs of European medical schools with the minimum requirement medical curriculum recommended by the European University Association. Methods. Information on the curricula was gathered from the websites of 32 medical schools from 18 European countries. The data collected were the number of courses and proportion of each course in the study plan according to the class hours or credits. Each curriculum was compared with the standard medical curriculum recommended by the European University Association. Courses were clustered in 3 large groups: preclinical, clinical, and public health.

The proportion of preclinical subjects was the highest at the Medical Schools in Brussels, Dublin, Milan, and Madrid, and the lowest in Athens, London, Lund, and Bucharest. The proportion of clinical subjects was the highest at the Medical Schools in London, Bucharest, and Genoa, and the lowest in Brussels, Dublin, and Milan. Croatian Medical Schools (Zagreb, Osijek, Split, and Rijeka) and the Medical School in Milan had the highest proportion of public health and humanistic subjects in their curricula. Neuroscience was found in less than half of the analyzed medical school curricula, and Psychology in about two-thirds. Nuclear Medicine course was found only in 7 out of 28 schools. Intensive Care, Anesthesiology, and Urology courses were found in less than half of the curricula. Two-thirds of analyzed curricula offered Primary Care course within the group of public health and humanistic courses. Epidemiology and Social Medicine courses were taught at more than half, and Anthropology at one-sixth of the medical schools.

The lack of uniform curriculum in European medical schools makes mutual accreditation and mobility of students very difficult. Great deviations from the standard, ie, medical curriculum recommended by the European University Association, question the possibility of a quick medical curricula reform.