Why not teach where the patients are?

Abstract

[Extract] If the aim of medical education is to produce a trained and responsive medical workforce, then we need to consider what we know about current, and future, workforce needs. One thing is clear: the provision of medical care now involves greater use of community facilities as hospitals evolve into high throughput, short stay and highly specialised centres. Hospitals are changing the way they do business, with economic pressures, and the emergence of new techniques and therapies driving a growing emphasis on early discharge from hospital, with shorter stays and more outpatient treatment. The move of the major teaching resource – the patient undergoing medical treatment – into the community is matched by the increasing move to deliver education in this setting.