Student Corner Education and Training

The debate about changing the scoring system for the USMLE Step 1 exam is both a manifestation of dysfunction in the medical education pathway and an opportunity to address this dysfunction.

Training practitioners with better skills in teamwork and communication is thought to be essential for preventing medical errors, and it may help reduce health inequities and reverse rising costs by providing patients with the amount and type of expertise they need.

Medical schools have been moving away from lecture-based courses. Questions remain, however, regarding what content students must learn, how that learning is best done, and what else is required for trainees to become lifelong learners and adaptable practitioners.

With the rapid pace of health care delivery reform, there have been calls for medical schools to increase their focus on health policy research and education.

With internal medicine residency interview season starting soon, it’s a good time to formulate a personal decision model – one that will determine which questions to ask during interviews and tours, and how to weigh various factors and rank options for The Match. 

Why isn't the fourth year of medical school being used to meet the needs and desires of medical students, residents, and residency programs? The problem, in part, is the overly burdensome process of preparing for and applying to residency programs.

If you walk through my medical school building in the evening and follow the aroma of pizza, you'll probably find your way to a dinner talk organized by a student specialty interest group. Running the gamut from surgery to psychiatry, these groups are made up of first- and second-year medical students...

Increases in numbers of medical students and a cap on Medicare-funded residency positions have sparked fear that some U.S. medical graduates won't be able to practice medicine. But the trends suggest that there will be ample slots for U.S. graduates over the next decade.

With many patients complaining about doctors' poor interpersonal skills, changes are being made to the medical school admissions process. But the problem may lie less in the selection process than in how we educate students in medical school.

In response to concerns about a growing physician shortage, existing U.S. medical schools have expanded, new ones have been developed, and colleges of osteopathy have grown rapidly. But there are insufficient residency posts to accommodate all these medical graduates.

Medical education in this era of a vast medical canon can be improved without increasing the time it takes to earn a medical degree, if we make lessons “stickier” and embrace a learning strategy that is self-paced and mastery-based and that boosts engagement.