Medical education

Medical education is the teaching and learning through which people acquire the knowledge, clinical skills, and professional judgment needed to practice medicine. It spans undergraduate study, postgraduate training, and continuing professional development.

Medical curriculum: The organized sequence of courses, clinical experiences, and assessments used to prepare students for medical practice. It structures the knowledge and clinical experiences that medical education must bring together.
Medical school: An institution that provides the undergraduate education and clinical preparation required for a medical degree. It is the principal setting for initial formal preparation to become a physician.
Flexner Report: A 1910 report by Abraham Flexner that evaluated medical schools in the United States and Canada and urged stronger scientific standards. It helped establish laboratory science and university affiliation as benchmarks for medical schools.
Traditional medical education: A medical training model organized mainly around fixed courses, scheduled clinical rotations, and time-based progression. It contrasts with curricula that advance learners according to demonstrated competence.
Patient safety: The prevention of avoidable harm to patients during healthcare. Training in communication, procedures, and clinical judgment can reduce preventable errors.
Clinical reasoning: The cognitive process of interpreting patient information to form diagnoses and choose management. Learners must turn scientific knowledge and clinical findings into defensible decisions.
Residency (medicine): Supervised postgraduate clinical training in a medical specialty after medical school. It develops specialty competence through progressively responsible patient care.
Abraham Flexner: An American educator whose 1910 report on medical schools influenced medical education reform in North America. His evaluation became a major force in reshaping medical school standards.
Problem-based learning: An instructional method in which learners develop knowledge by investigating problems, often through small-group discussion. Medical schools use it to organize learning around clinical problems rather than lectures alone.
Medical error: A preventable failure in planning or executing healthcare that may cause harm or fail to achieve its intended result. Errors reveal gaps in the knowledge, teamwork, or systems that training must address.

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