'Systemic problems with medical training

Updated on: Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Medical education worldwide is "outdated and static" and producing ill-equipped graduates, a new study has claimed.

According to the report, published in the medical journal The Lancet, there are "systemic problems" in the education of doctors around the world and even rich countries like Britain are not in a position to cope with the challenges of the 21st century.

Medical courses are "fragmented, outdated, and static" and produce "ill-equipped graduates" around the world, said the report prepared by an international team of 20 experts.

It said that high income countries are "struggling to adapt to increasing costs and changing demographics of their populations".

The experts headed by Professor Julio Frenk, dean of Harvard School of Public Health and Dr Lincoln Chen, president of the China Medical Board wrote that problems include "mismatch of competencies to patient and population needs; poor teamwork (and) persistent gender stratification of professional status".

The team also suggested "for major reform across the entire medical education system, in order to produce competency-led curricula for the future".

The report did not specifically look at medical training in the UK, the Telegraph reported.

However, earlier this month an official review concluded that training for medical graduates in their first two years was not aligned to the future health care needs of a rapidly ageing British population.

There were only a small number of posts for junior doctors who wanted to become GPs, found Medical Education England, even though "current workforce planning assumptions suggest that around 50 per cent of doctors in training will need to become GPs".

The availability of posts "reflects in part the General Medical Council's requirements implemented in 1967," the report stated.

'Systemic problems with medical training

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