Rodrigo Guris, MD, a third-year resident in the department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, said the medical field's skepticism of change has resulted in an unfair emphasis on test scores in assessing medical students and residents' performance.
In a letter to the editor published in the journal Academic Medicine, Dr. Guris comments on how the pinnacle of a medical student's early career achievements rests on "a series of numerical scores on examinations that rely predominantly on the recitation of memorized facts."
He said judging a clinician's aptitude by their ability to memorize facts and statistics is "counterproductive" because the regurgitation of facts "[robs] … trainees of valuable time and mental bandwidth" that can be used much more effectively by developing their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Those skills, Dr. Guris says, will prove much more useful because they are directly involved in a physician's day-to-day responsibilities.
Dr. Guris also notes the internet houses an ever-increasing body of knowledge medical students are required to learn. That information is readily available at one's fingertips, and its attainability eliminates the need for students and residents to consume and remember every ounce of knowledge they are taught.