Essential Institutional Competencies for Population-Based Education

Abstract

If a medical school is not turning out a mix of clinicians capable of meeting the wide variety of needs for medical care that characterizes all human populations, the relevance and validity of its teaching and research must be called into question, however distinguished that school may be. Its competence could be said to comprise the competencies of its graduates in meeting the entire population’s medical care needs, either by clinical work or research. Institutional competence has to be addressed, therefore, in terms of the competencies bestowed on those it educates, and the way that task is addressed. The more hubristic its image the wider the scope it may claim for its graduates’ distinguished contributions, but whether it aims to serve the world, its nation, region, or home town, it must relate its teaching and research to the whole range of problems encountered in whatever population it claims to serve. Where it is supported by public money there is an implied contract to provide for the population from whom the money comes. Meeting the needs of a defined population demands of a medical school teaching and research which addresses three “dimensions” of medicine: comprehensiveness, generality, and balance.