Medicine students not learning ‘to use brains’ in hospitals

MEDICINE graduates have problems dealing with simple clinical problems, because the education system is too focused on rote learning rather than getting students to “use their brains”, two leading doctors have warned.

Professor Paul Finucane of the University of Limerick and Dr John Kellett of Nenagh Hospital said they “pity the students of today” who get their clinical training in chaotic hospitals, by dealing with patients who are drunk and abusive. The two made their remarks in this month’s editorial of the European Journal of Internal Medicine.

Their article, entitled “Whatever happened to the doctor’s brain?” calls for an overhaul of medical education in Ireland, so that students are “encouraged to think, and apply their knowledge in solving clinical problems”.