MASTERY LEARNING IN MEDICAL TRAINING

Brilliant doctors will save lives but as long as they are professional, caring, methodical and well read on latest research. Doctors need not be brilliant to do that.

For several years, there has been a program in mastery learning at the University of Papua New Guinea Medical College. It promotes in student doctors the skills of diagnosis and treatment over a wide range of illnesses.

 

I have not examined the program but would guess that a well organized program would set down several hundred illnesses for the students to examine on paper or computer.

 

They would master the diagnosis, causes and treatment of the illnesses. They would practise before going out to treat patiuents for real.

 

It raises the question of whether or not the universities have to lower the level of difficulty of their studies and raise the level of mastery. It may be that many of the best doctors are not brilliant but good practical average.

 

Universities should not seek to weed out students. There are fallacies about so-called intelligence. In my young years, I gained from high school a certain paranoia about not being intelligent enough. There seems to be a degree of smart-arse snobbery among some teachers and university lecturers..

 

But in the years that followed to the present, I recognise in myself a high degree of analytical ability and ability to put ideas together. I recall a nerd lecturer at University saying that intelligence is the capacity to think in high level concepts.

I have always thought that highly intelligent people can read higher level concepts if they have to. But the real mark of intelligence is the capacity to explain in simple terms. Some people hide behind big words.

 

The same lecturer told me I probably did not have the intellect to succeed in university studies. Yet in my two degrees, I gained many Distinctions and Credits assignments and exams. Would I have made an effective doctor? Probably..

 

Universities have to practise mastery learning. They need to identify and train the best. Many of these may not be brilliant.  

 

The secret is to raise the level of learning in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Education should not be made to become a barrier. Gaps should not exist in learning that allow only the smarter students to bridge.