Content area
Full Text
Looking to the future
In Imagined Worlds, Dyson (1998) marshals his gifts as a scientist and as a storyteller to present an illuminating account of possible developments in the future. He tells of a country doctor whose pride was his magnificent house and garden in a village in Germany. When Dyson admired the large oak tree that stood in front of the house, the doctor said in a matter-of-fact tone, "That tree will have to come down; it has passed its prime". Dyson could see that the tree was in good health and had no signs of imminent collapse. He asked the doctor how he could bear to chop it down. The doctor replied, "For the sake of the grandchildren. That tree would last my time, but it would not last theirs. I will plant a tree that they will enjoy when they are as old as I am now." Horizons are long, Dyson points out, and we should be looking a hundred years ahead-the time an oak tree takes to grow. Dyson's vision may be relevant when we think about planning for the future in medical education.
It cannot be denied that today there is unprecedented activity in medical education. The impetus has come from a number of sources: from advances in medicine and biomedical sciences, from changes in the pattern of the delivery of healthcare, from developments in thinking about teaching and learning and from an increased consumerism and pressure for accountability. Tensions have arisen from the need to combine seeming opposites-a study of breadth and depth, a mastery of core while retaining an element of choice, an emphasis on education for capability while preserving a firm scientific basis for the practice of medicine, the introduction of new themes into the curriculum such as communication skills and attitudes while not neglecting traditional topics, and an emphasis on integrated teaching while at the same time recognizing the important contribution of disciplines.
An uncertain future Where is this flurry of activity in medical education leading? What sort of future is envisioned? The future is notoriously difficult to predict: what medical education will be like 15-20 years from now, far less at the end of the first century of the new millennium, is uncertain. A recent...