Hasta La Ideas

Frank Lau, co-founder of Gunner Training and a resident in plastic surgery at Harvard, recently gave a lecture about his philosophy behind medical school education and what the future of education should look like.

Lau described his own course of medical study as a “sisyphean cycle” of having to relearn material dozens of times, often forgetting information immediately after applying it. “A lot of the time I knew what I was doing,” quipped Lau, “but sometimes I maybe forgot…so be careful out there!”

Lau continued to elucidate four main challenges to medical education:

1. Teaching Patient Shortages

2. Teacher Shortages

3. Conflicting Institution Systems

4. Financial Problems

Lau ran through proposed solutions, including national medical curriculums, simulations, standardized patients, and the adoption of competency-based education. The latter has students “sit in the classroom just long enough to show you know the material.” The individualized system allows brighter students and hard workers to move through the material at a quicker pace than those who need extra help.

The most serious issue, though, is that often students move through medical school absorbing “critical knowledge” just long enough to perform well on tests. Retaining this knowledge, however, is another story entirely. A 2009 study of Basic Life Support (BLS) skills at prestigious Johns Hopkins of 70 pediatrics residents showed that two-thirds failed to start CPR in a timely manner, while the vast majority made errors during defibrillation. When the most highly trained doctors cannot perform skills anyone can learn at their local YMCA—well, then there must be a serious problem with the education system.

“There are a lot of sub-optimal fixes” to this problem, said Lau. “Every few years you hear about some technology revolutionizing education.” But this is not the appropriate solution. “What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology,” said Lau quoting Steve Jobs from an interview over a decade ago. “No amount of technology will make a dent.”

With the stage set, Lau proferred his own set of principles which formed the basis of his Gunner Training business:

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