And although there are great efforts to standardize medical practice, the truth is that the general practitioner market -more than 200,000 in Mexico- is riddled with inconsistencies since, with the notable exceptions of public and private educational institutions, thousands graduate year after year. of doctors without proper exposure to patients and without incentives to develop a life and career plan in a place where the best health systems in the world recharge their success: first contact medicine. There are doctors, but abandoned by the health system.
The characteristics of the population and the circumstances of today’s world, in short, are not the same as they were a couple of decades ago. We are facing an increasing life expectancy, which confronts us with more prolonged chronic-degenerative diseases; Bad lifestyle habits have notably affected global health, with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer as threats today.
The high mobility of people between countries, as well as migratory phenomena have exposed us -COVID-19 is proof of this- to a new panorama in the prevalence of diseases, at the same time that the population growth that the UN anticipates will pass from 7.8 to 9.7 billion people by 2050, will have Africa and Asia as its epicenter, thus influencing a new genetic footprint.
With these circumstances in mind, in addition to the advancement of science and the exponential amount of information that is generated daily, today there is no way for doctors to obtain and analyze it other than through databases and systematic filters. Therefore, educational systems should expose students to medicine based on scientific evidence that is based on the best knowledge available at the moment and supported for analysis with artificial intelligence.
Knowledge in the health sector requires that the doctor critically interpret what he knows instead of just remembering what he learned, and for this he must be trained in the analysis of complex systems and critical thinking. Genomics, biostatistics, global and urban health, coding and predictive analysis, in addition to the classic subjects of anatomy, physiology and applied biochemistry, are the subjects that the curricula of medicine and health sciences careers should have in order to train doctors for the next 30 years.
On the other hand, the humanistic sense in medical sciences becomes very relevant. The doctor must be educated considering the patient the epicenter of his actions, but with a population approach. A deep education in values, human rights, inclusion and diversity should have a more relevant role since the human sense is not an attribute that can be replaced with technology.
It is also a priority to understand who the new medical student is. Today he is a highly social, digital and hyperconnected person, with needs for feedback and the creation of learning communities, who will be used to collaboration between disciplines and very alien to traditional systems of teaching and learning models.
The solitary, guru and almighty doctor has remained in the past: we teachers must take off the robe of the traditional doctor and also adapt to the changes that the progress of science and the new reality of the world impose on us.
However, there is no educational model in health that replaces the deep inefficiencies and inequalities generated by anachronistic public health systems installed in premises that are more than 50 years old. The change to have a better health system in the future lies in the education and preparation of those who make public policy decisions. There, with a few exceptions, our expectations really go down.