Medical education

Medical education is education related to the practice of being a medical practitioner, either the initial training to become a doctor or further training thereafter.

Medical education and training varies considerably across the world. Various teaching methodologies have been utilised in medical education, which is an active area of educational research.

Entry-level education

Main article: Medical school

Entry-level medical education programs are tertiary-level courses undertaken at a medical school. Depending on jurisdiction and university, these may be either undergraduate-entry or graduate-entry programs.

Generally, initial training is taken at medical school. Traditionally initial medical education is divided between preclinical and clinical studies. The former consisting of the basic sciences such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology. The latter consists of teaching in the various areas of clinical medicine such as internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, surgery. Increasingly, however, medical programs are using systems-based curricula in which learning is integrated, and several institutions do this using problem-based learning models.

Post-graduate education

Following completion of entry-level training, newly graduated doctors are often required to undertake a period of supervised practice before full registration is granted; this is most often of one year duration and may be referred to as "internship" or "provisional registration".

Further training in a particular field of medicine may be undertaken. In some jurisdictions this is commenced immediately following completion of entry-level training, whilst other jurisdictions require junior doctors to undertake generalist (unstreamed) training for a number of years before commencing specialisation.