Medical Education and Professionalism

Is briefly analyzed the evolution that the objectives, strategies and models of medical education have had since their presentation and subsequent implementation of the famous model of Abraham Flexner, is now 103 years. Although globally accepted in their original pedagogical principles and instruments, that model does not have avoided the continuing dissatisfaction by the medical community and students and, most markedly in recent decades, the demanding of a most efficient health care by society, in general, and by patients in particular. In response to these ambitions, the medical community felt that it was essential to review the traditional criteria of medical professionalism, adapting them to a new paradigm of society and an appropriate and more efficient model of medical education. In this respect, are analyzed strategies and methodologies, apparently more suitable proposals for the inclusion of the principles and responsibilities of medical professionalism since the early period of pre-graduated medical education. It is assumed that the emphasis in teaching and practice of reflection throughout the course will have positive and lasting repercussions during active working life. However, the author believes that the success of the measures to be introduced in medical education programs to a new model of professionalism continues to depend, above all, of the humanistic and cognitive attributes of the students to be chosen, and the pedagogical quality, professional and academic of their teachers.