Modernizing Medical Education through Leadership Development

The Flexner Report of 1910 transformed medical education and ushered in over a century of major medical advances and improvements in the practice of medicine. The requirements set forth by the report grounded modern medicine in the biomedical sciences and equipped physicians with the competencies to become excellent clinicians, researchers, and educators. However, rapid changes in the complexity and scale of the American health care system present today’s physicians with a set of unique challenges. The adoption of new health care technologies, major policy changes to curb the cost of health care, and demographic shifts will fundamentally alter the practice of medicine in this century. We must reform medical education to respond to these changes. Besides conferring expertise in clinical care and the biomedical sciences, medical schools and residency programs should also incorporate interprofessional education, formal management training, and training pipelines that reflect the diversity of those receiving care.