Traditional learning has its merits
Editor - Jessie Morgan's review of problem based learning in undergraduate
medical curriculums correctly highlighted many of the supposed benefits of
this new style of teaching.1 But she failed
to provide adequate coverage of the
many problems that also accompany
such techniques.
Firstly, students undertaking the new
curriculum are being denied the opportunity to study and develop interests in
the basic medical science disciplines, such
as physiology, pharmacology, anatomy,
microbiology, and biochemistry. How
many talented students will now fail to
work in these fields simply because they
have had inadequate exposure to them?
Secondly, students are being deprived of
access to inspirational teachers. Although
some of the lecturers at medical school
may be boring, many more have a fervent
passion for their subject, which in turn
inspires others. Learning from textbooks
is not the same as being lectured by the
people who have written them.
Lastly, and perhaps most fundamentally, I fail to understand how 18 and 19
year old students can possibly know what
knowledge they need to practise medicine, even with the guidance of a facilitator. Problem based learning must surely
encourage students to omit huge chunks
of essential knowledge, with dire consequences for their future careers and the
patients they will treat. William Osler
once famously remarked that to attempt
to study medicine without opening books
is to sail in an uncharted sea. Apart from
not recognising where they are sailing, I
fear that medical graduates from the new
courses driven by problem based learning may find it rather stormy.
Competing interests: None declared.
David King, fourth year medical student, University
of Leeds
Email: ugm1dak@leeds.ac.uk
studentBMJ 2006;14:309-352 September ISSN 0966-6494
- Morgan J. Do tomorrow's doctors really know no
anatomy? studentBMJ 2006;14:246-7. (June.)
