A Practical Guide for Medical Teachers

In medicine our professional self-confidence has lately been eroded by the unrealistic expectations of a consumer society and a shamefully large number of medical disasters. Naturally enough, we wonder if our highly exposed shortcoming have their root in the way we educate doctors. So we traitorously acquiesce in the general derision of the traditional curriculum. You know the sort of thing: the preclinical course is time spent in the company of a cadaver; ward attachments are serial episodes of ritual humiliation; the preregistration year is endurance training in sleep deprivation. And we sit on committees to discuss how to do better.