This document discusses how medical education will change by the year 2020. It predicts that developments in technology, evolving pedagogical concepts, and changing demands for healthcare will drive changes. Teachers will move from solely providing information to acting as guides for students. Resources will be developed and shared globally online. Planning and assessment will increase and become more centralized. Teachers will facilitate learning and act as mentors, though many contacts may be virtual. They will remain important as role models for developing students' ethical and humanistic skills. The role of medical teachers will stratify, with some working globally and others locally, but teachers will still be needed as long as there are students wanting to study medicine.
2. The Factors Which Will Drive Changes
(1) development of technical aids & ICT
(2) evolution of pedagogical concepts
(3) changing demands for medical services
(4) increasing competition among schools
(5) call for TQM (total quality management) by
the accreditation systems
3. Why Change? – a 20-year old in 2020
• Used a computer before
starting kindergarten
• Spend 20,000 hrs. watching
interactive TV and movies
• Send 200,000 emails/texts
• Uses a technology no one
today has predicted in 1980
4. These young people
were born into a
digital world where
they expect to be
able to create,
consume, remix,
and share creations.
-PEW Internet Project
7. Teacher’s Roles Today - (Harden)
(1) Information provider
(2) Resource developer
(3) Planner
(4) Assessor - Evaluator
(5) Facilitator-Mentor
(6) Role model
8. 1. Information Provider
• easy access to information will leave
didactic presentation, which has a
transfer-loss of >90% a “no-go”
• Increasing number of “open-access”
lectures by the best specialists in the
field
– free & on-demand (e.g., pitts.edu)
• Role will change from a “Sage on stage”
to a ‘Guide by the side’
9. Information Provider – Clinical & Practical
• teacher role in providing practical & clinical
information will also be challenged
• multimedia programs e.g., virtual patients, for
self-instruction in physical examination,
surgical maneuvers and laboratory procedures
• The teacher will be needed for supervision of
learning on real patients
10. 2. Resource Developer
• Text-books will seamlessly connect to internet
• the same resources will be used worldwide *
• increasing demand for the best teachers who
combine deep knowledge of their discipline
with expertise in E-education
• remaining teachers will prepare syllabi, study
guides & handouts
* ‘Supercourse’ Lectures on Epidemiology &
Public Health (DVD & Internet)
11. (3) Planner
• more centralized planning on a global or
regional scale (“internationalization”)
• will have to be done by teachers, even if only
a small group of representatives
• remaining teachers will plan local courses,
electives, teaching hours, and student
exchange programs
12. (4) Assessor - Evaluator
• will increase greatly in the future
• Systematic Outcomes assessment will be in
place for TQM (total quality management)
• participation of teachers in
– benchmarking of schools,
– accreditation of programs, and
– quality assurance
13. (5) Facilitator – Mentor
• Will increase, although many of these
contacts might be via E-media and not
directly
• personal involvement and guidance
(mentoring) will be needed to add
humanity to education, which will be
overwhelmed by technology
14. (6) Role model
• Doctor-Patient relationship is intensely
personal
• Good role-models will always be needed to
guide the young impressionable medicos to
ethical and humanistic handling of patients
15. Summary
• stratification might occur among the
profession revealing the top educationists
who act on a global/regional scale and local
teachers with more restricted responsibilities
• the medical teacher will survive as long as
there are candidates willing to study medicine
Ref - J Mirecka, The medical teacher in the year 2020, Medical Teacher, Vol. 22, No. 5,
2000
