ENGAGING IN JOINT REFORM IN MEDICAL-EDUCATION AND MEDICAL-PRACTICE

Medical education and health services depend on each other and should shape each other; examples of how the latter can be done are included in this paper. Items affecting the future of medicine and health services, and thus bearing implications for medical education, include advances in biomedical science, social origins of health and disease, demography and population medicine, technology and its assessment, health economics, the roles of givers and receivers of health care, the administration and management of health care, quality assurance, sites of care, and the nature of health care teams. Some medical schools, such as that at the University of Newcastle (Australia), have developed medical education programs explicitly mindful of such items. For the sake of both education and health services, medical schools should work with policymakers and others in improving health services.