Presidential address of Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Abstract

It is a significant honor to be recognized by one's peers and to be given the opportunity to lead an organization whose primary goal is the perpetuation of our discipline. It is a particular honor to serve in that role in the twenty-fifth anniversary year of the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics, which also represents for me a twenty-fifth anniversary in academic medicine. The goals of my presidential address are limited and simple: to express some aspects of personal philosophy; to summarize the problems we face in medicine, in academic careers, and in our discipline; to review the changes in the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics and our specialty in the past 25 years; and to provide some inspirational thoughts about the future. Persons in my position have a problem. While we are medical teachers in that we have taught students for 25 or more years, we are not experts in education. Although we cannot explain it in educational terms, we have developed an instinct for those approaches in medical education that work and those that do not. It is this instinct that makes some of us react so negatively to the suggestions of those who work in the theory rather than the practice of medical education. For example, the concept that in an ideal world, medical education would be a totally integrated and interdisciplinary experience is one that I do not find very convincing. In my experience, integrated teaching is difficult to plan and to mount, expensive, and extremely time-consuming for the organizers, and it is