You're right. Maybe i'm just too optimistic and believe medical students are adults capable of self-learning and are intrinsically motivated. However from what I'm reading in this thread, PBL/TBL is becoming increasingly adopted by more medical schools. And even top schools have required PBL sessions.
Maybe it's for the better. I could see mandatory PBLs combined with optional lectures and unranked P/F grading being a very useful curriculum capable of producing very fruitful results come clinical years and residency. Active learning is always a good thing and a productive use of the time (and tuition spent/debt taken).
Being a hyper left-leaning individual myself, I've gotten into too many debates with libertarians and the like to not spot one in the wild .
Anyways, the bolded is where I see the future of medical education and agree with you (well, I think the future holds that plus a greater emphasis on or inclusion of the sociological model of health and illness... but alas, that's a topic to save for another time). I think medical administrators or those in charge of curricula will necessarily have to make lectures optional -- PBL is in a sense the antithesis to the lecture-based pedagogy, and they take time. Making
both mandatory, I think, would be too much of a time-suck.
Of course, US medical schools have in the past and are still churning out great physicians, in spite of many programs still holding on to ranked grading and more traditional teaching methods (lectures, two years of pre-clinical training, etc.). However, it's becoming increasingly evident that a change to flipped classrooms, T/PBL, or other, revised teaching methods is warranted.
Even if data comes out showing that hours invested in the medical ethics resulted in fewer malpractice suits, better patient outcomes, or any measure of success - it is biased in that there has been an increased push for recruiting ethical students in the first place. The increased adoption of MMI, for example, give schools ways to assess ethics that were not present in earlier generations of doctor. I'd like to add, that by measuring more, you are increasing the bias of recruitment of medical students, which can impact the future of doctoring in many, probably unforeseen ways.
...What about great surgeons now that are snippy and short with people? What about great thinkers, not talkers, that enter med school with a vision for contributing to new therapies? These personality types are sifted out from the process and not granted admission due to the entry bias you all have introduced.
So maybe I grimace about these ethics sessions. So what? How many times a week would you like to spend an hour reading about:
Dr. John Hancock hated his patient Lucita Hernandes. "Why doesn't she just speak English better?" He thought. People shouldn't come to the United States if they don't care enough to learn the language. She was really sick today, but Dr. Hancock was frustrated that he couldn't figure out what she was saying. He approached his secretary and asked if they could call Lucita's family for help. "They aren't answering the phone," the secretary said. If you were Dr. Hancock, what would you do? How did Mr. Hancock contribute to Lucita's problem? ...
Of course committees' evaluation methods are biased, they're human, and literally
everything we ever do is going to be "tinged" by our biases. But that doesn't make it an inherently wrong or ineffective method by any stretch of the imagination. As is evident from other threads floating around SDN
currently, while many schools adopt a "holistic" review paradigm, they still value academic performance over virtually all other measures (and that's not a bad thing, I think; medical school is
hard, and they're justified in refusing to invest in someone who might not stand up to the rigor). I highly, highly, highly doubt that "great surgeons" or "great thinkers" are denied a medical education by virtue of MMI's, or holistic review practices. Time and time again, medical schools select, educate, and create incredible physicians -- I don't think that trend is declining at all, and if anything, it's rising at an increasing rate.
Also,
any institutional changes we make will have unforeseen consequences. That's the nature of life. Our futures are unpredictable, but that doesn't justify inaction -- especially if current data show benefits. Those ethical dilemmas you cringe at are issues that physicians might deal with, and it's important that we select people prepared to handle them. If you don't like dealing with them, that's not a problem! You'll likely end up in a speciality that doesn't result in such interactions, and that's perfectly fine. No measure of aptitude and competency is perfect, but to argue against change because of a
possibility -- one of low likelihood no less -- of weeding out a specific subset of people is myopic at best.
Clichés exist because, most of the times, they're true. The oft-quoted sayings, "doctors are more than scientists," or "physicians need better communication skills" aren't just fluff. These new teaching and interview styles are meant to address these issues. If they don't work, then we'll have to find another way, and move on -- but we won't know until we try.
Whew. Okay, rant over. I'll be back later tonight; this thread has been awesome. Don't stop the discussion! ✌