2009-The Physician of the Future English and Catalan

3. H OW TO BRIDGE THE GAP 79 3.1. Medical Schools As Medical Schools are the places in which future physicians begin the process of becoming what they will be, here is where changes ought to start. First of all, the candidate admission’s criteria should incorporate personal and vocational pro"les in addition to academic performance, which is currently the only criteria utilised. $e present curricula should also be modi"ed to attain the desired outcomes that in turn should be de"ned in ameasurable form. Curricular changes should include a balance between the scienti"c and technical components and the humanistic, including communication skills, ethical reasoning capacities and the development of professionalism values. New assessment methodologies, for formative and summative purposes, need to be incorporated. $ey should explicitly attempt to asses the new, transversal, outcome objectives, since, as is well -known, assessment drives learning. Learning to learn is abasic tool needed for a lifelong learningprofession, and critical awareness for self-assessment is the basic element for learning motivation. Both must become essential educational outcomes of medical schools’ curricula. Furthermore, the whole educational system should "ll present gaps between educational cycles (basic-postgraduate- continuing education) in order to foster educational continuum. $e criteria used for selection and evaluation of teaching sta' should be accordingly updated. $e “hidden curriculum” should become explicit and assessed in order to receive the recognition it deserves, since it establishes, through a role modelling e'ect of teaching sta', basic behavioural patterns of future physicians. $e length of basic educationmay be reducedwith a better distribution of curricular contents and coordination of educational objectives with postgraduate specialist training. Universities ought to foster links between Medical Schools and schools in other health professions as learning together facilitates working together.