Medical education research: aligning design and research goals

Given that the training of doctors started some 2000 years ago, one might think that everything that needs to be known about medical education is long known. Not so. Times change and so do practice, society, health care systems and patient expectations. There are also shifts in how we deliver education, and in training linked to changing health care practices and systems (eg, limits on hours of training).1 Moreover, our knowledge of what constitutes good clinical practice is constantly evolving.