Letters
Musculoskeletal diseases
Volume 197 - Issue 6

Training doctors — too long in the cellar?

Author:  Thomas K F Taylor

Med J Aust 2012; 197 (6): 328-329. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.11091
Published online: 17 September 2012
To the Editor: The recent editorial by Kappagoda poses a much neglected question for the medical profession.1 There is a longstanding unmet need to consider undergraduate and postgraduate training and education in medicine generally as a continuum, with streaming as a natural corollary.2 Of the two papers that reported on the changes to the medical curriculum at the University of Sydney since the introduction of the ...
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To the Editor: The recent editorial by Kappagoda poses a much neglected question for the medical profession.1 There is a longstanding unmet need to consider undergraduate and postgraduate training and education in medicine generally as a continuum, with streaming as a natural corollary.2

Of the two papers that reported on the changes to the medical curriculum at the University of Sydney since the introduction of the graduate program in 1997, neither has seriously considered the obvious solution of constructive streaming,3,4 with division into broad, somewhat overlapping areas — generalised, surgical, physician, research, etc. One possible reason for this omission is a serious disorder — academic myopia.

Consider the different organisations that have an interest in medical education: secondary schools (purposeful preparation for medical school), universities, the learned colleges, professional associations, the public and private hospital systems and, last but by no means least, the public purse. For example, the current process for producing a well trained specialist surgeon in my own discipline, orthopaedic surgery, is monstrously inefficient and expensive in so many ways.2

Regrettably, there is no statutory forum for the much needed communication and cooperation between these self-centred bodies. The missing catalyst for purposeful action is more than obvious: strong leadership with the requisite authority and unswerving commitment to the task. Time is on no one’s side in this complex, demanding problem.

Author

  • Thomas K F Taylor1
  • 1. University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: tktaylor@med.usyd.edu.au

Competing interests

No relevant disclosures.

References

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