History of Medical Education

The history of medicine is an important topic to many practitioners that tends to come up time and again in lectures and pimping sessions alike.  Regardless of what specialty you're planning to go into, it is generally a good idea to have a few school and specialty specific tidbits up your sleeve.  For Toronto, important ones tend to be Sir Willam Osler and Banting and Best.  There are also the numerous eponyms that medicine (especially internal) is famous for.  I was pleasantly surprised and comforted when I heard a few of the chief medical residents say they usually ignore them, which is my preferred method of dealing with them as well.
The reason for the above pretext is that this week we were assigned to read some articles written by various forward thinkers in the field of medical education in preparation for this week's discussion.  I expected to be reminded that I was very unfamiliar with this field of research but I was surprised see I was mistaken.  The articles focussed on the development of PBL and OSCEs. These things were a big part of my medical education and will continue to be an anxiety provoking experience far into my residency.  It was enlightening to learn about the theory behind the development of PBL, contrasting how it would be used in an ideal world and how different local schools use it as a teaching tool.  It was interesting to learn that a single department in Scotland is responsible for testing OSCEs as a means of examination and disseminating that information throughout the world.  Although I'm not particularly fond of either one of these teaching/examination techniques I can now approach them with a better understanding of their goals and how they came to be incorporated in medical education.  For myself and many others in my field, I think understanding where things come from provides me with a greater respect for the thing itself.

Ashlay