why was the flexner report written

The Flexner Report In 1904, the American Medical Association created the Council on Medical Education to evaluate and restructure medical education. Abraham Flexner

, an educator and reformer who published The American College: A Criticism in 1908, was hired to study American medical schools.

Full Answer

What did the Flexner Report of 1910 do?

The 1910 Flexner Report examined medical education and suggested reform for medical colleges, which included increasing standards, partnering with hospitals for clinical training, and closing schools that could not afford to update and maintain facilities.

How did the Flexner Report change medical education?

The Flexner Report drastically changed medical education, especially for African American physicians. Flexner recommended coeducation of men and women in medical schools, but believed that Black physicians should be trained to serve Black communities. Prior to the report, there were over 20 Black medical schools in the Unites States.

What was a repercussion of the Flexner Report?

A repercussion of the Flexner Report, resulting from the closure or consolidation of university training, was reversion of American universities to male-only admittance programs to accommodate a smaller admission pool.

Who is Abraham Flexner and why does he matter?

Henry Pritchett, president of the Carnegie Foundation and a staunch advocate of medical school reform, chose Abraham Flexner to conduct the survey. Neither a physician, a scientist, nor a medical educator, Flexner held a Bachelor of Arts degree and operated a for-profit school in Louisville, Kentucky.

What is the purpose of the Flexner Report?

The Flexner Report of 1910 transformed the nature and process of medical education in America with a resulting elimination of proprietary schools and the establishment of the biomedical model as the gold standard of medical training.

Why did Flexner write the Flexner Report?

Flexner sought to reduce the number of medical schools in the US. A majority of American institutions granting MD or DO degrees as of the date of the Report (1910) closed within two to three decades.

What did the Flexner Report say?

In his report, Flexner wrote that African-American physicians should be trained in "hygiene rather than surgery" and should primarily serve as "sanitarians," whose purpose was "protecting whites" from common diseases like tuberculosis.

What did Abraham Flexner contribute to medical education?

His 1910 report included a conceptual model of how modern medical education should be conducted and descriptions of each medical school that were explicit in both praise and censure.In the decade following the Flexner Report the number of medical schools decreased from 133 to 85.

What was the primary effect of the Flexner Report quizlet?

One of the most important outcomes of Flexner's report was... That it stimulated support for medical education from foundations and wealthy individuals. Schools that received the most favorable ratings from Flexner shared most of the money.

What happened after the Flexner Report?

Mediated through the commissions of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and its Carnegie Foundation Washington, D C Office, Flexner's Report subsequently led to shutting down the majority of CAM-oriented colleges and programs (e.g., medical schools, homoeopathic colleges, and some psychiatric ...

What did the Flexner Report emphasize as the cornerstone of medical education?

Since the reforms in medical education prompted by the Flexner report, one of the cornerstones of medical education has been literacy in research methods and statistics, as well as careful review of scientific literature (Cooke et al., 2006).

What is the Flexner model?

Flexner believed that all education should be utilitarian and should prepare the individual for the responsibilities of citizenship and for an occupation or a profession. He also believed that general education lasted too long in this country.

How many medical schools were closed by the Flexner Report?

The Flexner report seemed to have a substantial impact on medical schools. Within 20 years after the report's publication, the original 131 medical schools from 1910 were reduced to 76, although not 31 as Flexner originally suggested.

Who commissioned the Flexner Report?

Already by 1910 America's 166 medical schools had been reduced in number to 126. This atmosphere of national concern for the quality of American medical education prompted the Carnegie Foundation to commission Abraham Flexner to conduct a comprehensive, independent study of the nation's medical schools.

Which medical school graduates the most black doctors?

Howard University is among the nation's top medical schools, but Xavier University of New Orleans is the consensus leader that produced the most Black medical school graduates.

How many black medical schools were there?

Seven medical schools for blacks were established between 1868 and 1904.

What was the impact of the Flexner Report on medical education and black medical schools?

After the Flexner Report's publication, diminished numbers of Black medical schools, combined with anti-Black racism (eg, segregation laws and practices), limited how Black Americans could serve the nation.

What did the Flexner Report emphasize as the cornerstone of medical education?

Since the reforms in medical education prompted by the Flexner report, one of the cornerstones of medical education has been literacy in research methods and statistics, as well as careful review of scientific literature (Cooke et al., 2006).

What was the impact of the Flexner Report on the medical training of black physicians?

But in practice, the Flexner Report all but eliminated medical education for African-Americans, primarily because the American Medical Association used the report to advance an agenda that protected the professional and financial interests of their (white, male) membership.

Why was the American Medical Association established?

Founding of the AMA Nathan S. Davis, calling for a national medical convention, led to the establishment of the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1847. Scientific advancement, standards for medical education, launching a program of medical ethics, improved public health — these were the goals of the AMA.

What was the purpose of the Flexner Report?

The Flexner Report set American medicine on a course that was fueled by the energy of scientific discovery. Those discoveries have immeasurably improved the lives of all human beings, and it is difficult to cavil in the face of such accomplishments. But the oversights of Flexner and his associates need not have occurred if these leaders had recognized the primary role of physicians as beneficent healers; the delicate balance of patient care and research could have been pursued with mutual benefits for both sides. As it was, the science of medicine eclipsed the active witnessing of our patients. Edmund Pellegrino’s lament was proven true that doctors had become neutered technicians with patients in the service of science rather than science in the service of patients. How else to explain the seemingly unexplainable Tuskegee experiments, the Henrietta Lacks tissue culture tragedy, the many occurrences in which the physician as scientist has taken precedence over the physician as healer. But this lesion is not restricted to situations in which patients are used as experimental subjects ― it pervades the fashion in which so much of medicine was taught and practiced in the last century. This lapse has not escaped our patient population nor our critics who have richly documented the poverty of professional ideals now current in medicine. They have called for a new Flexner Report, a centennial taking stock, to address the shortcomings in medical education that have occurred in the aftermath of the original report. Dr Tom Inui, an internist and medical educator, was enlisted by the AMA to spend a year in this investigation [14]; Molly Cooke and her associates undertook the same task for the AMA and performed a mini-version of the Flexner initiative by visiting 10 medical schools throughout America [15]. Everyone is a proponent of what is now happening in many medical schools. Major emphasis is being placed upon the professional formation of students and specific core competencies. Practice-based learning, a Flexner initiative, is supplemented by courses in patient communication, medical ethics, and medical humanities. Departments of medical education are now part of medical faculties that train their members to incorporate these ideals into their courses. The coming century has received a bounteous richness of medical accomplishments thanks to Flexner; a system of education that was conceived more than a century ago still remains a vibrant system. There is in place an edifice that is the envy of the entire world, but it is a structure that has required a re-molding in light of its too-narrow focus. The original Hopkins edifice has been rebalanced in the last 10 years following the revisions in the medical curriculum that recent re-evaluations have called for.

What was the result of the Flexner Report of 1910?

The Flexner Report of 1910 transformed the nature and process of medical education in America with a resulting elimination of proprietary schools and the establishment of the biomedical model as the gold standard of medical training . This transformation occurred in the aftermath of the report, which embraced scientific knowledge ...

What did Abraham Flexner do in his career?

The success of the school and money obtained from its subsequent sale were Flexner’s ticket out of Louisville; in the next few years, he pursued an MPhil at Harvard in philosophy and journeyed to Europe, where he visited schools in Great Britain, France, and, particularly, Germany. His continental seasoning was focused upon university medical education in these countries, paralleling the then common practice of young American physicians in completing their medical studies abroad. It was out of his practical experience as an educator in America and his exploration of pedagogical strategies in Europe that he distilled his critiques of and correctives for American schooling in his book, The American College. Flexner and his expertise came to the attention of Henry Pritchett, head of the Carnegie Foundation, upon reading The American College. At the time, the Foundation had identified improvement of health care in America as the primary focus of its philanthropic concern. To achieve this purpose, the foundation members correctly surmised that improvement in the very sorry state of medical schooling in America was necessary; they invited Abraham Flexner to survey the quality of medical schools throughout America and Canada and provide suggestions for their improvement.

What was the purpose of the Interurban Clinical Club?

The purpose of this organization was the exchanging of ideas and the nurturing of fellowship among medical professors in the leading Eastern medical schools. Its aims included several goals that Flexner’s conception of medical education also incorporated; scientific investigation of disease was promoted, and methods of teaching were to be shared and improved. The club was largely responsible for the development of the scientific base of American medicine. It was the springboard to eminence for department and divisional heads of the leading medical schools in America. These were the individuals who forged institutional philosophies and standards of excellence in medical schools throughout the next century. The era of the clinical scientist in America dates from this organization; its members were academic physicians who became the vital link between the practicing physician and the basic scientist. Flexner’s task was greatly facilitated by the coalescence of all of this energy invested in improving medical education in America.

What was the fate of one third of American medical schools in the aftermath of the report?

The latter was the fate of one-third of American medical schools in the aftermath of the report. A majority of the medical schools were rated as defective with low admission standards, poor laboratory facilities, and minimal exposure to clinical material.

When was Abraham Flexner published?

Abraham Flexner: an autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster; 1960. [Google Scholar]

Who wrote the report on medical education in Europe?

Flexner A. Medical Education in Europe: a report to the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of teaching. New York: 1912. [Google Scholar]

When was the Flexner Report published?

In 1910 he published the book-length report Medical Education in the United States and Canada which is now known as the Flexner Report. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

What is the Flexner Report?

In this frenzy for the latest and greatest, the door was wide open for how new technology might improve our lives in every way. So why not also give our health over to science and technology and see if they can also improve and lengthen our lives?

What is the connection between the robber barons and medicine?

John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and others saw this as a progression of peddling pharmaceuticals, which began as byproducts of oil refinement.

Why did medical professionals leaned heavily toward natural healing pose the greatest threat to this standardization?

Medical professionals who leaned heavily toward natural healing posed the greatest threat to this standardization because they continued to demonstrate that nature has provided what’s necessary to treat or prevent just about any illness.

Who was Abraham Flexner?

1. Abraham Flexner was not a doctor, but a school teacher and educational theorist from Louisville, Kentucky. In 1910 he published the Medical Education in the United States and Canada, known as the Flexner Report, which elevated the importance of German educational methods in the teaching of medicine.

Who drew the connection between this and the need for an educational component?

Hans Ruesch also drew the connection between this and the need for an educational component, “So the stage was set for the ‘education’ of the American public, with a view to turning it into a population of drug and medico dependents, with the early help of the parents and the schools, then with direct advertising and, last but not least, the influence the advertising revenues had on the media-makers.

Do doctors help fuel the pharmaceutical propaganda machine?

Obviously, there are plenty of highly trained doctors who aren’t interested in helping fuel the pharmaceutical propaganda machine, but there’s a system in place that virtually ensures that we take the bait.

What was the purpose of the Flexner Report?

Published in 1910, the Flexner Report blasted the unregulated state of medical education, urging professional standards to produce a force of “fewer and better doctors.”

Who has questioned whether the field is working hard enough to change the persistent inequalities?

But Dr. Clayton and Dr. Byrd have questioned whether the field is working hard enough to change the persistent inequalities. And they aren’t the only experts wondering.

What is the name of the book that the authors of the American Health Dilemma published?

that had never been comprehensively told, publishing their findings in a two-volume work, “ An American Health Dilemma ” (2000 and 2001, Routledge).

Did the medical establishment follow all recommendations?

The medical establishment didn’t follow all of the report’s recommendations, however.