Atavistic Postgraduate Courses

Abstract

It is hard to escape an unsettling impression given by the prominent-lecturer format used in postgraduate medical courses: this form of teaching is a throw-back to the preliterate mode of communication of ideas. Anthropologists point out the emotional force that can be harnessed by the spoken word in societies that depend on the oral tradition. Authoritative figures who transmit information in this way exert considerable power over groups of listeners; the oral style of communication by leaders encourages group feeling and keeps alive in the individual listener the childhood sense of dependence.