How much has medical education changed over the years? Quite a bit: everything from the courses that a first-year med student takes to the hours that a medical resident spends on call has undergone an overhaul.
As What Medical Schools Are Doing Now That They Weren’t 20 Years Ago notes, today’s med students study anatomy and pharmacology, but they also take courses in medical ethics. They learn how to interpret symptoms, but they also learn how to crunch the numbers and evaluate the biostatics needed to support evidence-based medicine. And in addition to being required to assimilate vast quantities of information, today’s med students are also evaluated on how well they convey that information to the patient, aka their bedside manner. All of that is a big difference from what medical school was like in the past.
Finally, a physician trained years ago might be surprised by the workload of today’s medical resident: Instead of being on call almost around the clock, regulations now limit a resident’s weekly workload to 80 hours.
The world of medical treatments never stands still—and the same is true for going to medical school.
