LAHORE, Dec 4: Medical educationists need to teach social sciences, system management, economics, and medical professionalism to produce doctors who fulfill the expectations of society.

Famous medical educationist Prof Dr Ara Tekian from the University of Illinois, Chicago, said this in a lecture delivered on ‘Medical Education: Past, Present and the Future’ at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Wednesday.

He said a new model of clinical education was needed which was more community-based rather than being too hospital-based.

Prof Tekian also suggested that medical schools moved from time-based education towards the education based on development of competencies “so learners move through as they are ready to move through”.He said traditionally the medical school curriculum was packed with two years of mainly lecture-based learning of the basic sciences, followed by two or three years of hospital-based clinical training. During these first two years, there were lots of facts to be memorised with limited opportunities to develop problem-solving skills and to transfer knowledge to clinical situations.

For Prof Ara Tekian, competency-based education was the trend in the medical education of today.

“The themes critical to the practice of medicine, including professionalism, patient care practices, integration of knowledge and evidence-based medicine have to be taught together through all five years of the curriculum,” he stressed. — Staff Reporter