Dr. Caplan concludes:
“What is my takeaway from this interesting discussion? I think major curriculum change is in the air, and we are going to see more of it. It is likely that more schools will experiment with a 3-year curriculum. It is not for everyone. As our guests pointed out, not everybody is going to flourish in a 3-year curriculum. There will certainly be schools that do 4 years, and maybe longer periods of training.
“At the end of the day, the 3-year curriculum is not really the solution to the high cost of medical education. If we are going to fix that problem, it will have to come through government subsidy, philanthropy, gifts, and other solutions.
“The 3-year curriculum is not the answer. It is the answer for some students who know what they want to be and know what specialty they want to enter. They can get there faster and move more quickly down the road of training by having that option.”
To read and watch the discussion, please hit this link.
