Abstract
The growing demands for easily accessible, cost effective and efficient health care services are hindering many medical training programs in delivering well prepared physicians, equipped with the competencies to tackle new and complex health care problems. In addition to this, many medical institutions are finding it difficult to design curricula that would prepare today’s physicians adequately for the ongoing changes in health care. Targeted customer service is a growing phenomenon in health care, where healthcare institutions are operating as retail service providers, design experiences and deliver care around the convenience of consumers rather than the preferences of providers. Gradually finding its way into medical education, this concept entails investing in understanding the beliefs and values of consumers as a result of their different expectations and differences. Defined by the experiences that create common values among the members of a specific group, the discourse of generation segmentation has proven to be a helpful way of understanding consumer differences. There are four known generations currently impacting the pattern and distribution of healthcare services and in the coming decade, the future of medical education In this paper, medical education is re-examined in the light of this phenomenon of generation segmentation and whether today’s physicians are being effectively prepared to practice in a fast changing world. The analysis provided in this paper presents a recommendation for the medical curriculum of a new millennium based on the changing needs and expectations of different generations of consumers.
Highlights
Health care delivery and health professions education are at major crossroads in many countries today
In North America and Europe, the average time spent in medical training to become specialist physicians is between 5 and 7 years, in addition to the 3–5 years spent in undergraduate medical school
As physicians increasingly have to work with other professionals in health care teams or integrated care systems, the education of physicians would have to be modified to match the desires and values in a new community of health consumers [11, 12]
Summary
Health care delivery and health professions education are at major crossroads in many countries today. It is estimated that about one million physicians are trained in more than 2,000 medical schools and an estimated $100 billion/year is spent on health professions education globally. The average cost of tuition for each graduate medical student is set at approximately $113,000/year with unit costs being highest in North America and lowest in China [2]. The past few years have, witnessed a rethinking of current training practices and many think that the duration of the medical training is too long. They argue that medical training programmes can be shortened considerably without any serious consequences to the outcome of the programmes. Bearing in mind that the average medical student in the United States graduates with an estimated $160,000 in debt, 4 years less of medical school would be significant in lowering tuition debts of trainees [3]
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