[Students' and doctors' ability to place important medical historical events in time]

Much of the basis for current medical practice was formed by research and progress in the past century. We have examined medical students' and doctors' ability to place selected historical events in time.

Three groups - older doctors, final-year students at NTNU Medical School, and first-year students at the same institution - placed 35 significant medical events in time by completing a questionnaire. Differences between the years given and the correct answers formed the basis for analyses of variance.

Older doctors dated events most accurately, final-year students displayed larger margins of error, and first-year students the largest (p < 0.001). Older doctors dated most events more accurately than both student groups. Final-year students dated 9 of 35 events more accurately than first-year students. All the groups dated certain events (the pill, first heart transplant, in vitro fertilization, introduction of MRI, and the HIV "triple cocktail") more accurately than other events. Events from before about 1950 were generally dated later than they actually occurred.

Older doctors can date significant events from medical history more accurately than medical students. Both doctors and medical students placed older events more recently in time than what was actually the case, while events from the most recent past were placed earlier in time - especially by first-year students.