Educating Physicians: A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency

Released in 1910, The Flexner Report (Medical Education in the United States and Canada) changed the face of medical education in the United States. Commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching at the request of the American Medical Association's Council on Medical Education, Abraham Flexner collected information about the current state of medical education in the United States and Canada by visiting all 155 medical schools in North America. His report highlighted several university-based programs that had already adopted a system firmly rooted in scientific inquiry and concomitantly called for extensive reform and standardization of the medical education system. As a result of this report, many medical schools considered substandard were closed, medical licensing and certification procedures were developed, and the general organization of medical education (2 years of preclinical courses followed by 2 years of clinical training) was firmly established.