Contradictions of Medical Education

This book presents a political view of medicaleducation based on dialectical analysis of a range of practice. This approach, and thecontradictions that it reveals, will enable anyone with an interest in medical educationdevelopment, or in teaching or researching medical education, to do so systematically,critically and constructively for their own context. How the analysisof medical educationwas built is described. It also offers relevant academic commentary on the practice thatforms that basis of the political view. The issues addressed include assessment, curriculum,teaching methods, social issues, identity, professional values, management,undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education, and the process ofbecoming an educationalist. These are widely discussed topics in medical education, notyet unified on the basis of a critical theoretical framework. Education is a social scienceso the book is guided to understand the links between natural science theories thatunderpin medicine, to the social science theory that underpins medical education. Thisbook is ground-breaking, in being the first and only politicalanalysis developed specifically formedical education, and based on the practice of that discipline in a variety of contexts intheglobal north andtheglobal south.The academic commentaries clarify the relationship between the political analysis of medicaleducation and the existing content of the discipline that is widely taught and used. This view of medical education will enable those working, teaching, studying or researchingin this field to analyse, criticise, understand, challenge, and build on current knowledgeand practice appropriately to their own context.