Medical school survival versus social responsibility: finances as a driving force

Medical educators are an interesting group of people. They thrive on new knowledge. They get excited and enthusiastic, and readily adopt new ways when the evidence is sufficient. Yet, at the same time, they resist with great vehemence change in the way they do their business. Ask how often the curriculum structure is examined. Indeed, the function of most curriculum committees is to ensure that that does not happen. Ask how often the criteria for medical school admission are examined, especially with respect to the knowledge requirements. Ask how often the faculty discusses, or even examines, the expectations of society as they are expressed by alumni, legislators, or members of the public. Ask how often faculties try to determine strategies for dealing with all of these external forces. Are those strategies approached with the same degree of objectivity and data-gathering skills that would be used in examining new therapeutic regimens? Medical educators are talented, creative people. They have a very large appetite for information and great ambition to be as fine academicians as possible. It is those characteristics that have served them well, as students and as responsible academicians. Indeed, the great strength of medical education, in my view, is that medical schools take some very bright people called faculty and some very bright people called students, mix them together for four years, and graduate a group of very smart people who will then spend three years or more mixed up with some very bright and creative people. That is a strength that can-not lost. Will the future allow us to continue that in an equally effective manner?